J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, f 

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CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



i/' 



By SIMEON NASH, 



Author of "Morality and the State ' 



"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old 
he will not depart from it." 




CINCINNATI : 

ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 

1876. 









Entered according- to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

SIMEON NASH, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 

Stereotyped by Ogden, Campbell & Co., Cincinnati. 



PREFACE. 



The first hint for the following discussion came to my 
mind from an experience gained in the administration of 
criminal justice. I had occasion to pass sentence upon 
several boys, whose history was known to me ; and in that 
history, I thought, I saw the reason why these boys were 
criminals, instead of being honest and industrious. It ap- 
peared to me, that in parental neglect I saw the true rea- 
son why they were what they were, and not other than 
they were. 

Having a call to deliver a lecture, I took up the subject 
and discussed it substantially in the manner here pursued. 
I repeated that lecture upon several occasions, and, at each 
time, these views made, I had reason to believe, a deep and 
lasting impression. I was urged by many to write them 
out for publication. Encouraged by these requests, and 
feeling that the public mind needed to be roused up to a 
better understanding of this all-important subject, I have 
prepared the following work for publication, in the earnest 
hope that it may call attention and stimulate to thought 
on this subject. Amid the imperious calls of pressing pub- 
lic duties, I can not promise myself that the work might 
not have been better done ; I have labored to make myself 
understood, and, if I have not failed there, I am satisfied. 



IV PREFACE. 



The value of a book should be tested by the truth it con- 
tains, not by its fine writing. 

I now submit this little work with the earnest hope that 
it may be as good seed sown in a fruitful soil, growing up 
into an abundant harvest — that it may awake public atten- 
tion, and lead to thought, until others may come forth to 
supply its imperfections and enforce more eloquently it3 
truths ; so that the children that may come after us may, 
by a more earnest performance of parental duties, escape 
the dangers which have so thickly beset the paths of those 
who have gone before. We may then hope to see the cur- 
rent of crime narrowing and shoaling until it shall wholly 

disappear. 

SIMEON NASH. 
Gallipolis, Ohio, a. d. 1861. 



The above was written some years since, as will be 
seen by the date. Circumstances then made it prudent 
not to publish. Now, on re-reading the proof after so many 
years, I see no reason to alter what I then wrote, but sub- 
mit the same to every candid, truth-loving, and earnest 

mind. 

S. N. 
Gallipolis, May 10, 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



Chap. 1. — Introduction, ..... 1 

Chap. 2. — Crime, Some of its Explanations, . . 6 

Chap. 3. — Crime, Some of its Manifestations, . 13 

Chap. 4. — Crime, its true Source, . . . .21 

Chap. 5. — The Child, the Subject, ... 28 

Chap. • 6. — The Family, the Medium, . . .45 

Chap. 7. — Parents, their Position, ... 54 

Chap. 8. — Government, . . . . .58 

Chap. 9. — Teaching, Spiritual Culture, . . 67 

Chap. 10. — Teaching, Material Living, . . .93 

Chap. 11. — Teaching, Industry, .... 105 

Chap. 12. — Teaching, Society, . . . .113 

Chap. 13.— Teaching, the Mode, ... 125 

Chap. 14.— The Wrong Way, . . . .131 

Chap. 15. — The State, its Duty, . • • 145 
Chap. 16. — Conclusion, ..... 152 



CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Crime and the family ! It may be objected that 
this is a strange juxtaposition" of these two words — the 
one indicating all that is wicked and debased in hu- 
manity ; the other, all that is endearing and holy. 
Strange, however, as it may seem, I think I shall be 
able to show that there is a most intimate relation be- 
tween the family and crime ; a more intimate one than 
many mistaken and misguided parents have suspected, 
while they were blindly engaged in working out for 
their children a future overclouded with vice, crime, 
and misery. I hope to be able, by a discussion of 
this' relationship, to wake up the attention of parents 
to a clearer perception of their duties and responsi- 
bilities. 

Much has been said, written, and done upon the 
subject of the reformation of criminals, and somewhat 
of good has grown out of these discussions and do- 
ings, in the improved architecture of our prisons, and 
the better and the more humane administration of 
them; but in the matter of the reform of criminals, 
little or nothing has been accomplished. This has 
been owing to various causes — mainly to the almost 
moral impossibility of reclaiming those who have 



CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



grown up into crime, and acquired the thoughts and 
opinions and development necessarily attendant upon 
a life of crime. There is another consideration, how- 
ever, which is not to be overlooked ; and that is, the 
objection raised against the adoption, in the govern- 
ment of prisons, of a thorough system of religious 
teaching. If the criminal is to be reformed, it must 
be by the introduction of a radical change in his life ; 
and religion alone holds out any hopes of working in 
humanity such a change. The prisoner must become 
religious, must feel within him a new life and new 
emotions — a life wrought out from a belief in God, and 
emotions of love and gratitude toward God, which that 
faith alone is capable of developing in a human soul. 
But it is said that to press upon the attention of crim- 
inals confined for crimes against the State, the subject 
of religion, is an infringement of their rights of con- 
science ; as though the State had not a right to employ 
all and any means which were reasonably calculated 
to reclaim the criminal, to change the bad man into a 
good one, to convert the law-breaker into a law- 
abider ! This imaginary difficulty has been got round 
by indirection — by the appointment of moral instruc- 
tors instead of chaplains — just as though a change of 
name could work a change in the nature of the thing ; 
for no mere moral teaching, no mere appeal to the 
principles of expediency and prudence, ever did, ever 
will, or ever can work that moral and spiritual reforma- 
tion in a human soul, without which it can not become 
what it must be, in order that the criminal shall be 
converted into the honest, law-abiding man. 

There is still another difficulty connected with this 
effort, which has contributed to this failure — the abso- 



INTRODUCTION. 



lute disqualification of the men appointed to the office 
of religious teacher for these outlawed men. Clergy- 
men are, in most cases, illy fitted to address such men. 
They are wholly ignorant of the mysterious workings 
of a human soul educated into crime. They can not 
reach it, can not get hold of it, since to do this re- 
quires a thorough knowledge of humanity, of a human 
soul, and of the motives and views which influence its 
actions and affections, when sunk into these terrible 
depths of vice and crime. One maybe able to meth- 
odize into science the whole of revealed truth, and yet 
utterly fail when brought face to face before a human 
soul tainted with crime. It would be well if our 
clergy studied humanity more, even if they studied 
theology less. The truths through which the Chris- 
tian life is worked out are few and simple, while theol- 
ogy, as a science, is the way in which the intellect 
regards revealed truth, and methodizes it into a sys- 
tem. If the human soul is to be spiritually affected, 
it must be by the presentation of these plain and sim- 
ple facts and truths, which go directly to its moral 
consciousness. The criminal must be made conscious 
of his guilt, or nothing in the way of reform can be 
accomplished. This self-consciousness of guilt is the 
first step in every moral change of heart and life 
and character. To do this with success, the teacher 
must understand the human soul in its degraded con- 
dition — must know its thoughts and opinions, and the 
motives by which it is influenced and impelled into 
action. This knowledge is necessary to the success- 
ful teacher or preacher, under all circumstances ; but 
it is indispensable when he is called upon to address a 
class of men so far removed from his own mode of 



CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



life and thoughts as are the depraved inmates of a 
prison. He must know what these men believe, and 
how they think, if his instruction is to exert any ben- 
eficial influence upon their lives. 

While these discussions on prisons and criminal re- 
forms have been prosecuted, little or no attention has 
been given to this terrible fact — the existence of crime 
itself. The existence of crime and criminals has 
seemed to be regarded as the necessary products of 
social development. Hence no investigations have 
been prosecuted to* search out the origin and source 
and cause of this terrible social evil, and ascertain, if 
possible, upon whom rested the responsibility that 
criminals were, somewhere in the bosom of society, 
being constantly educated into a life of. crime. This 
subject is of the deepest moment, and an effort to 
fathom it can not fail to. do good. It will at least open 
up the inquiry, and point out the mode of its prosecu- 
tion. These criminals were once innocent babes, 
drawing their life from a mother's breast. They were 
once in the family, and have come forth from it, not 
to adorn and bless, but to prey upon society. By 
whose fault and neglect does this take place? And 
how can it be prevented, if prevented it can be? In 
the following- work, I shall endeavor to furnish a solu- 
tion to these all-important questions, by endeavoring 
to ascertain the origin and cause of crime, and the 
manner in which these causes may be removed, and 
the education of criminals prevented. 

The effort is certainly worth an attempt at its solu- 
tion ; and in such a cause, even a failure can not be 
without its beneficial influences. A failure oftentimes 
is as good as a success — if not for the author, at least 



INTRODUCTION. 



for the public mind. Some imperfect and incomplete 
productions possess a fertilizing value, which works 
more perfect do not. Sterile even from their very 
perfection, they are an initiation. They open up new 
ways, break the old worn-out molds, stimulate the 
thought and imagination of readers, and render easy, 
to those coming after, victories which they have failed 
to obtain. Such works become the germs, which 
other minds, under more favorable auspices, will de- 
velop and perfect in form. All serious efforts will 
.have their influence, and that influence can only prove 
beneficial to future thought and social progress. If, 
then, I shall succeed simply in calling attention to this 
subject — in turning the public mind in a new and fruit- 
ful direction — I shall not have labored in vain. A 
book which sets the reader thinking can never be a 
worthless book. It will open up new views of an old 
subject, and lead to new trains of thought. Whether 
I shall have succeeded in doing this, it is not for me 
to say. That conclusion must be formulated by the 
reader, not by the author. 



CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



CHAPTER II. 

CRIME SOME OF ITS EXPLANATIONS. 

The existence of crime in society is a fearful and 
strange fact. If it were not so common, how startled 
should we be at the report of a larceny, or an arson, 
or a murder? The idea that men could be found ca- 
pable of violating human law, to say nothing of the 
divine law, and run the chances of being overtaken 
by its penalties, is a startling fact, and would seem to 
be almost an impossible one ; and yet so it is. Men are 
found who will violate the law, set society at defiance, 
and proclaim perpetual war upon its interests, al- 
though the chances are that their crimes will be found 
out, and they in their persons be compelled to suffer 
the penalties. The continuity of crime is a permanent 
fact, and punish as society may, the number of crimes 
is kept up, and the number of criminals goes on in- 
creasing with the growth of population and the accu- 
mulation of wealth. 

Since the enforcement of criminal law, the prompt 
conviction, and the rigid punishment of criminals are 
powerless to check the growth of crime and the multi- 
plication of criminals, it becomes an all-important in- 
quiry to ascertain what is the permanent source of 
crime, what t the method by which this army of crim- 
inals is recruited, is constantly kept up? If we could 
verify the real source of crime, we might be able to 
abate this, and thus get rid of it ; but so long as we 



CRIME — SOME OF ITS EXPLANATIONS. 7 

confine our attention to the punishment and reform of 
the criminal, instead of seeking to prevent his educa- 
tion, we shall never succeed in getting rid of crime. 
We must trace out the history of the criminal, ascer- 
tain how and where he was educated into crime, by 
whose agency and by whose neglect. We must pre- 
vent the formation of criminals, if we would put an 
end to the perpetration of crime. In this way, society 
will best protect its own interests, and advance civili- 
zation, intelligence, and moral worth. When the 
criminal is once formed, there seems, judging from 
experience, to be but very little hope of ever reclaim- 
ing him ; hence the great aim should be to prevent the 
formation, the education of the criminal. 

Criminals are not born such ; they were all at first 
infants in their mothers' arms, and from that home of 
tenderness, they have somehow strayed away from its 
influences and grown up to be law-breakers, the ene- 
mies of law and social order. How then does it hap- 
pen that one child grows up to be a criminal, and an- 
other to be an ornament and a blessing to society and 
friends? There is no necessity by which this strange 
result is wrought out ; there must be some cause con- 
sistent with free will and moral responsibility for this 
strange difference in the history of two human beings. 
How does it happen that of two infants, the one may 
become the judge upon the bench to pronounce, and 
the other the criminal at the bar to receive the sen- 
tence which the law has affixed to its violation? 

Various answers have been given in explanation of 
this social mystery, and these explanations have been 
as various and diverse as the men who gave them. 
Each has explained it according to his theory of hu- 



8 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



manity and society, and yet all these explanations have 
led to no reforms ; the race of criminals has gone on 
unbroken, and crime has continued to be prosecuted, 
and society has found no relief to this wound, under 
which it has suffered and still does suffer. 

The positive philosopher has his theory ; he explains 
crime by statistics. Gathering up the statistics of 
crime, he will tell you that a certain number of murders 
and robberies and arsons and larcenies are committed 
each j r ear, and a certain proportion of the criminals are 
prosecuted, and a certain other proportion convicted. 
In his investigations he does not confine himself to one 
nation or country ; he turns over the records of all 
countries, and shows that this law of proportion is 
found to exist in all civilized nations, in all social or- 
ganizations ; hence he infers that this is a law of social 
development, a law as permanent and uniform in its 
action as any other law of humanity and society. 
Crime, therefore, is, according to his theory, a neces- 
sary condition of society, as much as disease is a neces- 
sary condition of the body. 

All these statistics may be correct, and they may de- 
monstrate the existence of certain facts and laws ; but 
do they ex f lain anything? Do they furnish any clue 
to the cause why society is so developed? Why this 
proportion of crime is kept up? They show that some 
law is at work, some cause ever operative, and pro- 
ductive of nearly the same results, under nearly similar 
conditions ; otherwise this uniformity of results would 
not be wrought out. These philosophers give us the 
diagnosis of the disease, but they furnish us no expla- 
nation of its cause, no remedy for its cure. The man 
whose limb is broken, or whose body is being con- 



CRIME — SOME OF ITS EXPLANATIONS. 9 

sumed by a slow disease, is little benefited by having 
the nature of the fracture or the condition and working 
of his disease explained, unless he is also told how 
the one can be reduced and cured, and the cause and 
remedy for the other. So society is little benefited 
by all these figures, by all these facts, by all these sta- 
tistics, unless it is enlightened upon the true causes 
which produce these uniform effects. There must be 
some cause, underlying all these figures and facts, 
which operates upon beings endowed with reason and 
free will, and in harmony with these endowments, to 
bring about these uniform results, to produce these ef- 
fects. It is this cause which we wish to know, which 
we must know before we can intelligently set ourselves 
to the work of anticipating and preventing these re- 
sults, the education of criminals ; but of this cause or 
these causes the positive philosopher with all his sta- 
tistics gives us no information : hence he is but a blind 
guide in the inquiry now before us. 

With another class of minds, all the vices and crimes 
of men are attributed to poor, depraved human nature. 
Unless humanity had received a shock, a twist, an in- 
jury, there would have been no vice or crime, no sin 
of any degree of demerit. If man acted according 
to the idea by which God wrought in his creation, per- 
fect order and harmony and happiness would have 
been the portion of humanity ; but man violates the di- 
vine idea, the divine law in his action and develop- 
ment, and hence the existence of sin, and vice, and 
crime, and misery. But while this depravity is truly 
the source and cause of vice and crime, and if the 
former did not exist the latter could not, still is it true 
that this depravity necessarily leads to crime? If so, 



IO CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

all men ought to be criminals, and society and social 
order would be an impossibility. But all men are not 
criminals against the laws of society, whatever they 
may be-when tried by the higher and more compre- 
hensive laws of God. Hence depravity does not neces- 
sarily lead a human soul to crime ; there must be some 
other cause which produces the wide differences which 
we witness in the lives and characters of men. Why 
is it that with this common inheritance of depravity, 
some men are honest and others dishonest, some are 
virtuous and others vicious, some observers and 
others breakers of the law? Now it is this cause 
which makes these men so unlike, so different that we 
need to know and comprehend, before we are prepared 
to guide this depraved humanity in all cases and in 
every instance into the development of a life of hon- 
esty, and virtue, and obedience. 

Another will insist that the existence of crime de- 
pends upon the constitution of the race, or family, 
or individual ; that some races and families and 
individuals possess a constitution, an organization, 
something peculiar, which works out this result. 
It may be true that races and families deteriorate ; 
that, with some, this disease called depravity is 
stronger, and harder to be counteracted and over- 
come, than with others. Facts would seem to show 
that races and families improve ; that a race or family 
highly cultivated and moral produce children with 
more active intellects, with moral susceptibilities more 
easily excited and developed. They may also dete- 
riorate. Ignorant and immoral parents do probably 
impart something of their own stupidity and animal 
development to their children, and so far may this 



CRIME — SOME OF # ITS EXPLANATIONS. II 

deterioration be carried on in the process of genera- 
tions that the race or family will die out- — be incapable 
of perpetuating itself; but, before this can take place, 
moral responsibility must cease, and the race or fam- 
ily become idiotic. But still this fact, if it is a fact, 
does not necessitate the criminal, since, in these races 
and families, all are not violators of the laws of so- 
ciety and the State. The same distinction is here 
seen as among all societies — some are criminals, and 
others not. Hence there must be some reason, 
some cause for this distinction, for this marked differ- 
ence in men of the same race and family. This ex- 
planation, then, is no better than the others, and 
equally false and insufficient to explain the existence 
of crime in a society composed of beings endowed 
with reason to comprehend the true and the divine, 
and a free will to obey or disobey their teachings. 

All these explanations imply, if they do not assert, 
that crime is a fatality, not a sin — the result of blind 
causes, instead of the natural action of a free will and 
a blinded reason, overpowered by that animal nature 
which we all possess in common with the brute. If 
crime were a fatality, instead of ah act of free-will, 
it would cease to be a crime, an act worthy of punish- 
ment, and become only an occasion of commiseration. 
We should pity rather than punish. Society should 
protect itself against the criminal, as it does against 
the idiotic and insane, by simple restraint, not by the 
infliction of punishment. But we are conscious that 
such is not the case with the criminal. We know he 
acts against his own moral judgment in violating the 
law, doing that which he knows to be wrong, knows to 
be worthy of blame and punishment. Knowing that 



12 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

he ought not to do these acts, he does them ; and 
therein lies his criminality and his guilt, and the pos- 
sibility and certainty of his being conscious of his own 
demerit, of his own guilt, of his desert of punishment, 
so that when he stands at the bar of justice for judg- 
ment, he knows and feels that his punishment is just, 
his own mind and consciousness being his judge. 



CRIME SOME OF ITS MANIFESTATIONS. 13 



CHAPTER III. 

CRIME SOME OF ITS MANIFESTATIONS. 

We will now turn to some of the facts connected 
with the development and manifestation of crime. 
Each criminal has a history, and crime itself has also 
its history ; and if we can read these histories aright, 
we may learn the secret cause, ever operative in society 
in the promotion and education of criminals. 

The first fact to which I shall call attention, is the 
startling fact that the great majority of criminals are 
boys and young men of the age of thirty and under. 
The following facts are taken from the reports of the 
Ohio penitentiary : Out of one hundred and thirty con- 
victs admitted to the penitentiary of Ohio during the 
year ending the 22d day of December, A. d. 1841, 
forty-four were of the age of twenty and under ; fifty- 
two over the ages of twenty and under the age of thirty- 
one ; nineteen over thirty and under forty-one ; ten over 
forty and under fifty-one, and five over the age of fifty- 
one. In 1842 there were received one hundred and 
thirty-seven, the ages of which are reported as follows : 
Twenty-two were under the age of twenty-one ; sev- 
enty-three over twenty and under thirty-one ; nineteen 
over thirty and under forty-one ; sixteen over forty and 
under fifty-one, and seven over that age. Out of one 
hundred and fifty-six who were discharged in the same 
year, twenty-nine were under twenty-one ; seventy-one 
over twenty and under thirty-one ; thirty-five over 



14 CRIME AND. THE FAMILY. 

thirty and under forty-one ; seventeen over forty and 
under fifty-one, and four over fifty. There were one 
hundred and thirty-four discharged in 1841, whose 
ages were as follows : Fourteen w r ere under the age of 
twenty-one ; seventy-four over twenty and under thirty- 
one ; twenty-three. over thirty and under forty-one ; fif- 
teen over forty and under fifty-one, and eight over fifty. 
Out of two hundred and fifty-eight received, one hun- 
dred and eighty-five were under the age of thirty-one, 
and sixty-three over the age of thirty ; while of two 
hundred and ninety discharged convicts, one hundred 
and eighty-eight were under thirty-one, and one hun- 
dred and two were over thirty. In the case of the dis- 
charged convicts, the age of conviction is less than the 
age of discharge by the length of the imprisonment 
which the convict has undergone. I presume it will 
be found that these returns represent the general aver- 
age of the ages of conviction, not only in Ohio, but in 
the other States of the Union. These returns of crime, 
whenever and wherever examined, will be found, I 
think, to present the same results as to ages ; and the 
experience of every judge connected with the admin- 
istration of the criminal law, will only add confirmation 
to the melancholy fact that the great mass of our crim- 
inals are young men and boys under the age of thirty- 
one. 

The reason why there are so few old criminals is in 
part and mainly due to the fact, that a life of crime is 
a short life. The criminal is almost universally ad- 
dicted to those vices which contribute so fearfully to 
abridge the term of human life. Drunkenness and li- 
centiousness are vices peculiar to the criminal, and none 
shorten human life like these. A life of crime is also 



CRIME — SOME OF ITS^ MANIFESTATIONS. 15 

a life of hardship and exposure, of excess and of want, 
conditions inconsistent with health and length of days. 
The great proportion of criminals then begin early, 
while yet mere boys, their career of crime, and' die off 
before attaining the age of forty. Those of a greater 
age will be found to be exceptional cases, where men 
in mature life have been led by the pressure of circum- 
stances to the commission of a.single crime, and serve, 
therefore, to confirm the general result to which these 
figures and returns lead us. 

There is another fact which is brought out by a care- 
ful reading of the history of crime, that the larger pro- 
portion of criminals come from our cities and large 
towns. The rural population furnish few criminals in 
proportion to the whole number, and there are reasons 
why this should be so. Crime usually commences in 
vicious indulgencies. The boy who becomes a criminal, 
has first been guilty of vice and dissipation ; he has by 
these been prepared to become a criminal; through 
them he has been educated into crime. The tempta- 
tions to vice are not found in the rural districts ; drink- 
ing and licentiousness are not within the reach of 
youth there as they are in a city or large town, where 
they meet the boy in every street and at every corner, 
and call to him from every alley, inviting and urging 
him to indulgence ; hence the youth of a city are as- 
sailed by temptations, of which a boy raised on a farm 
can know nothing. The boy in the country may re- 
main virtuous, simply, because the temptations and 
means of vice, of moral degradation, are not accessible 
to him ; while, if he had been bred in a city, he would 
have eagerly ran astray into vice and crime. The po- 
sition of many a boy then decides his destiny for life, 



1 6 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

whether he shall be an ornament or a pest to society, 
an honor or a disgrace to his friends. This explains 
the fact that so many boys and young men, who in 
their rural home were virtuous and upright, go astray 
in the by-ways of vice and crime, when transferred 
amid the temptations and seductions of a great city ; 
they have been virtuous because the means of vice 
were not within their reach, not because they had re- 
ceived that intellectual and moral training which wakes 
up within us a power to resist all outward influences 
and vicious temptations, since we guide our life by the 
light that is within us, and not by the influences which 
act from without. Many a youth is kept from vice by 
the mere pressure of the outward influences which sur- 
round him ; but take this pressure off, and he will 
swing away into the regions of vicious indulgence, as 
the earth would into the regions of space, if the law 
of gravitation should cease to act. Abstinence from 
vice is not virtue ; that consists in a life wrought out 
from principles embraced by the reason and believed 
in as true — in a life which is the manifestation of a 
power within the spirit, and not the product of outward 
circumstances and influences. 

Another fact may be here noticed, and that is, that 
the great proportion of criminals come from two 
classes — the -poor and the rich. It needs only a little 
experience in the administration of criminal justice to 
be satisfied of this fact. And there are reasons why 
this should be so. The prayer of Augur explains the 
reason of it : " Give me neither poverty nor riches ; 
feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and 
deny Thee, and say who is the Lord? — or lest I be 
poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." 



CRIME — SOME OF ITS MANIFESTATIONS. 17 

Want often tempts to stealing, and stealing leads to 
other and higher crimes ; while an abundance of wealth 
furnishes the means of vicious indulgence, and, through 
vice, leads to want and crime. The one class can af- 
ford to be vicious ; the other can not afford to be honest 
and virtuous. The great body of our industrious pop- 
ulation are by industry preserved from dissipation and 
vice, and hence from crime, while wealth enables its 
possessor to be idle, and in idleness is found one of 
the widest gates and broadest ways leading to vice 
and crime. 

The last fact to which I wish to call attention, is the 
fact that most of the boys who grow up to become 
criminals are allowed to stray away from the family 
and waste their time in the streets and alleys, and the 
various places of recreation found in our cities and 
large towns. Family government is relaxed, and the 
boys are permitted to be out at nights, in these cities 
and towns, and thus acquire their education in the 
haunts of intoxication, licentiousness, and kindred 
vices. The moral consciousness is soon deadened by 
such a life ; vicious appetites and wants are stimulated 
in activity, and, to gratify these, the boy will resort to 
falsehood, and ultimately to crime. There he also 
comes in contact with older and more hardened boys, 
and by them is introduced into a society, the vocation 
of which is vice and crime. The school'of crime is 
the streets of a city or large town, and the teachers of 
crime are the reprobates in vice and the perpetrators 
of crime, who are there found swarming in multitudes, 
eager and ready to train others to walk the way they 
are engaged in themselves. I have witnessed the his- ' 

2 



l8 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

lory of boys thus educated into crime, and it was a 
case of this character which first called my attention 
to this subject. 

The children of two classes are exposed to this fear- 
ful ordeal — those of the rich and those of the poor. 
Poor parents who live in a city are compelled by daily 
labor to earn their daily bread. They have no em- 
ployment for their children, and, in many instances, 
can not afford the expense of regular schooling. 
Hence their children grow up in idleness and without 
education. Having no means of instruction and re- 
creation at home, the children must seek activity else- 
where ; and where else can they find it, except in the 
streets and in company with the bo}^s who are there 
found? The older ones become the instructors and 
educators of the younger ; and there will be found a 
graduated system of criminal education fully organ- 
ized, beginning with the hardened criminal and ex- 
tending down from grade to grade to the infant who 
can scarcely waddle in the streets. The pupils of the 
higher class or grade become, in their turn, the teach- 
ers of the next lower, and in this way the child is 
taken on through all the grades of a criminal educa- 
tion, until he graduates in the penitentiary or upon the 
gallows. Such children are to be pitied, because 
abandoned by the guardians whom God has given 
them. They are left to grow up like weeds and briers 
b}^ the roadsides and in the fence-corners. 

But, while the poor have some excuse and pallia- 
tion for their neglect, parents blessed with wealth have 
no excuse for theirs. They have the means of render- 
ing home pleasant for their children, of procuring for 
them the means of education, and of furnishing them 



CRIME — SOME OF ITS MANIFESTATIONS. 1 9 

with suitable employments. But, too much occupied 
with increasing and taking care of their growing 
wealth, they give no attention to the wants of their 
offspring. Indeed, many parents who have grown 
rich by their own industry, ability, and economy seem 
to consider labor a disgrace, to which their children 
must not be subjected. Though they themselves have 
been slaves to it all their lives, and are still too busy 
in the pursuit of wealth to train their children to indus- 
try, honesty, and virtue, they want their sons to be 
gentlemen, and, in their narrow views, idleness and 
dress and extravagance are the tests of a gentleman. 
Hence their sons are supplied with money, and left to 
their own guidance, amid the temptations of a great 
city or a large town. Having received no intellectual 
or moral culture themselves, many of them are wholly 
ignorant of its value and vital importance to the wel- 
fare of their own children. Preserved by poverty 
from vice themselves, they seem to think that their 
children will escape its contamination, while supplied 
with all the means of indulgence and left to the rude 
teachings of their appetites and passions. Children 
thus allowed to grow up become the fast young men 
in our cities, and, in the end, become involved in 
some crime of murder, committed amid the revelry of 
the drinking-saloon or the indulgences of the brothel. 
It is needless to r.efer to cases. They will readily rise 
up before the memory of one at all acquainted with 
the current history of crime in our cities. Parents too 
late, alas ! are often waked up to the folly and wick- 
edness of such a course by the downward career in 
vice and crime of a son once dear to their hearts. 
Their wealth, toiled for with so much care and 



20 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

hoarded with so much economy, instead of blessing 
their children, serves but to procure for them a richer 
winding-sheet and coffin and a more sumptuous fu- 
neral, and to pay the grave-digger to remove from 
sight the diseased and loathsome remains of a son 
once the joy of the parental home, now its dishonor 
and disgrace and misery, all brought about by parental 
misconduct and neglect. What consolation is wealth 
to a father or mother agonizing under the awful con- 
sciousness that theirs is the fault, theirs the responsi- 
bility for the wretched end of degraded, vicious, and 
criminal sons? And yet I have seen a parent who 
boasted of such criminal neglect in the training of his 
children, while his son stood arraigned at the bar of 
justice to receive sentence for a crime. But such 
monsters in human shape are made such by their in- 
fidelity and irreligion. Believing in no God, their 
children are but animals, and their lives as little worth 
as those of the dog or the horse ; when ended, all is 
ended. 



CRIME — ITS TRUE SOURCE. 21 



CHAPTER IV. 



CRIME ITS TRUE SOURCE. 



The facts presented in the last chapter tend strongly 
to show wherein is found the true source of crime. It 
is not found in any law of necessity, in any blind fa- 
tality working in and through humanity, and forcing 
it irresistibly into the practice of crime. Men are 
free ; they can not be forced into vice and crime 
against their wills. If they indulge in vices and com- 
mit crimes, the reason of their so doing is because 
they choose so to do, and the reason why they choose 
so to do is found in the fact that their education and . 
moral training have failed to lead them to do other- 
wise. Most are not criminal, most now are not 
vicious, and the reason why they are not is found in 
the fact that they have been trained by parental au- 
thority and teaching to deny their animal appetites 
and passions, and to shape their lives by laws and 
rules outside of and above humanity — laws and rules 
which teach us to restrain our passions and appetites, 
to hold them in rigid subjection, while we conform our 
actions and lives to these laws and rules of everlasting 
right. If all parents would do their duty, would so 
teach and govern their children as they ought to do, 
vice and crime would disappear, and virtue and order 
mark all the developments of society and all the ac- 
tions of men. If this is the case with most children, 
why can not it be the case with all? The wise man 



22 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

has said that if a child is trained up in the way he 
should go, he will not, when he is old, depart from it. 
This declaration is either true or it is not true. If it 
is true, then all misconduct on the part of children can 
be traced to neglect on the part of parents, and upon 
them rests the awful responsibility, if their child goes 
ast&y in the paths of vicious indulgences and closes 
his career at the bar of criminal justice. That this 
assertion of the wise man is true, is apparent from 
the facts already stated. Criminals come forth from 
those classes and conditions of society among which 
there is a laxness of family government. Children 
are permitted to stray away from home influences, to 
mingle with bad men, who become their educators, 
and educate and train them to gratify passions and in- 
dulge appetites, instead of restraining the one and 
denying the other. Criminals do not come forth from 
well-trained Christian families. In such families the 
child is kept away from the temptations which beset 
one in our cities and large towns, and are taught the 
great laws of right living, and constrained, by proper 
authority, to keep their animal instincts and appetites 
and passions in subjection to the law of reason ; while 
the criminal comes from families who fail to teach and 
govern, and allow the child to roam abroad, where 
temptations meet him at every step, and vice beckons 
him on with her blandest and most winning smiles. 

If there was any doubt upon this point, a single 
fact must dissipate it. The great body of criminals 
consists of males. There are very few female crim- 
inals. The following figures 'are taken at random 
from the returns of the Ohio penitentiary, and for 



CRIME ITS TRUE SOURCE. 23 

years, the returns for which are now within my reach. 
Read and consider them well : 

The returns for A. d. 1841 show four hundred and 
eighty convicts, of which four hundred and seventy- 
four are males, and six only are females ; for 1842, four 
hundred and forty-nine males, and nine females; in 
June, A. d. 1S49, there were eight hundred and tw r o 
males, and fourteen females. 

These figures show correctly the relative number of 
the two sexes who become the subjects of criminal 
prosecution. We know, indeed, that very few females 
are tried in our courts for the violation of law, in com- 
parison with the number of males. Now, females con- 
stitute over one-half of every population, and why is 
it, then, a fact patent to all that such a vast dispropor- 
tion is found to exist between the number of criminals 
furnished by .each? There must be some reason for 
this remarkable fact. It can not be attributed to na- 
ture. Is it to be admitted that boys are organized for 
crime, and girls are not? Are not their moral natures 
the same? That women are capable of vice and 
crime we know. We see most fearful examples of 
both at times. Nay, when woman does fall away 
into vice and crime, she seems to sink lower than men 
can. We see, then, in woman the same depravity 
that we see in man. In their development, if un- 
checked, it will have the same tendencies as in man, 
and lead on to the same fearful results. There is 
naturally no difference, in this respect, between the 
two sexes. The one is as capable of vice and crime 
as the other. Hence there must be some reason 
♦within the control of society why the one class runs 
to crime and the other does not. 



24 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

The reason for this difference is found in our social 
habits. Girls are not permitted to do what boys are 
permitted to do. The girl is kept within the family 
circle, under the power of home influences, and out 
of the reach of the temptations to vice and crime. 
Boys commit, every day, acts which, if girls were to 
do the same, would give a shock to society, and cause 
every father and mother to raise their hands and voices 
in astonishment and horror. What would you think 
if the girls in a city or town should visit the gin-palace, 
the drinking-saloon, sit at the card-table where gam- 
bling is permitted, be out in the streets of our cities 
and towns till midnight, rambling one knows not 
where, and doing one knows not what? And yet 
boys, by our social conventionalism, are permitted to 
do all this without rebuke, even without remark. Our 
social morality watches the conduct of the girls, re- 
strains them, keeps them away from vicious tempta- 
tions, confines them w 7 ithin the family circle, and sub- 
jects them to its holy influences, while boys are allowed 
to break away from home and home influences, and 
run madly to embrace temptations where they present 
themselves under the most captivating and seductive 
forms. 

In this difference in our mode of treating and train- 
ing the one sex from our mode of treating and training 
the other, is found a sufficient reason for the fact that 
nearly all the criminals come from the one sex and 
scarcely any from the other. In the different educa- 
tion and training which society gives to each, is the 
cause for this startling, this painful fact, and not in 
any law of necessity or of social development. Sub-» 
ject the girls to the same treatment and training to 



CRIME — ITS TRUE SOURCE. 25 

which boys are subjected, and there would come as 
many criminals from the one sex as from the other. 
If education and training, if social conventionalism 
can save girls from becoming criminals, it can also 
save the boys from a like destiny. Let boys be kept 
within the inlluence of the family ; be taught to feel 
the disgrace that attaches to a girl for a violation of 
social proprieties ; be kept away from the streets, from 
the temptation there found ; and they will be as virtuous 
as their sisters, and as much the ornament and the 
honor of home as they are. 

These facts and observations demonstrate that the 
source of all crime is in the family, arises from some 
neglect on the part of those to whom God has intrusted 
the infant, when first it opens its eyes upon the light 
which beautifies and gladdens the earth. This tendency 
in humanity to vice and crime can be counteracted and 
restrained, if the parent knows and will do his whole 
duty to the young immortal committed to his custody 
and nurture. If, then, the child goes astray, there has 
been neglect or ignorance on the part of parents ; the 
child has not been properly trained, because if he had 
been he would have continued to live and act as he 
had been taught to live and act, as he had been trained 
to live and act. 

This truth, painful as it is, should be impressed upon 
the mind of every parent. Parents should feel that 
upon them lies the fearful responsibility if their son 
becomes sunken in vice and hardened in crime; if 
their son suffers in the penitentiary or on the gallows, 
they must recollect that he thus suffers through their 
criminal neglect of those duties which they owed to 
their child. If parents fully realized this fearful truth, 



20 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

they would not dare to neglect, as so many now do, 
their parental duties — their duties of "teaching and train- 
ing and governing their children, their duty of con- 
straining them to do as the parent knows the child 
ought to be made to do. It is to the neglect or mistakes 
of parents in the training of their children that we may 
attribute all the vice and crime which now fill the 
world with so much pain and sorrow. This fearful 
truth can not be too often repeated in the ear of every 
parent and of every child. 

Such being the fact, it becomes a question of the 
deepest moment, how shall the parent so act as to in- 
sure his offspring against vice and crime? Much evil 
results from the ignorance of parents and from the mis- 
takes consequent upon that ignorance. Many well- 
meaning and religious parents have vicious and.crim- 
inal sons ; they meant well, but they made a mosf 
fearful mistake in their mode of education and training. 
To prevent such mistakes, the science of educating a 
human being should be better understood. For this 
purpose two things are requisite — a knowledge of the 
human soul or a human being; of its nature and the 
true mode by which God ordained that it should be 
developed, educated, and trained. It is to these ques- 
tions that the balance of this little work will be devoted- 
I shall endeavor to ascertain the nature of man, what 
powers and capacities he possesses, and the mode and 
manner by which these powers and capacities are to 
be developed, regulated, and trained, so that the child 
may be trained to act as God designed he should act. 
Whenever a human soul is thus developed in accord- 
ance with the divine idea and plan, it can never fall 
into vice or crime, but will yield to the commands of 



CRIME — ITS TRUE SOURCE. 27 

law, and gradually grow more and more into that di- 
vine image which was present to the mind of God 
when he # created, man. The whole economy of God 
in Christ for the recovery of a depraved humanity,, 
presupposes that men can be made virtuous, religious, 
pure in life and thought ; and that in the accomplish- 
ment of this high purpose, a rightful and earnest per- 
formance of the duty resting upon parents is one of 
the most important instrumentalities, an instrumental- 
ity appointed of God and constituting a part of His 
divine plan for human recovery. 



28 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 

We must understand the nature of our materials 
before we can intelligently mold and shape them into 
order and beauty. It is no less important that we 
should know the nature and capacities of a human 
soul, in order that we may be able intelligently to act 
upon it, to mold and shape it into that divine image 
in which it was created. No one can successfully 
educate and train a child without having learned the 
means and the mode and manner by and in which a 
human soul was destined to be developed and edu- 
cated. Many fearful mistakes are made from a want 
of this knowledge. The arduous labors of well- 
intentioned parents fail to produce the desired results 
through ignorance of the true method which God has 
ordained for the development and culture of the mind 
and soul. It is, then, of the highest importance that 
we should clearly understand the nature and laws of 
humanity ; and to this inquiry will the present chapter 
be devoted. Our object will not be to propound a 
theory ; we shall simply endeavor to verify facts. 
We must get hold of God's idea of man, the laws by 
which He designed that the human soul should be 
developed, should live and grow into what He, in His 
infinite wisdom, proposed it to become. To accom- 
plish this, we must get hold of the idea by which God 
wrought when He created man. We must master the 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 2() 

divine idea of humanity, if we would successfully 
deal with a human soul. God must have made man 
upon a plan in accordance with an idea existing in 
His own infinite mind, and endowed him with sus- 
ceptibilities, capacities, and powers, and given to these 
a law, by which alone they could be rightly and suc- 
cessfully developed, and the human being be made 
harmonious and happy in its activities. Unless we do 
understand God's idea of humanity, we can not work 
successfully upon its culture ; we shall be liable to go 
wrong, and the soul must be incomplete, defective in 
its development, and suffer from our ignorance. 

In order to attain this knowledge, we must study 
humanity entire. No half views will be sufficient. 
We must know the whole man, both his powers and 
capacities, and the right mode of their development 
and culture. There is profound ignorance upon this 
subject of moral psychology, a knowledge of which 
must lie at the foundation of all correct moral train- 
ing. Some think it sufficient to teach ; others that it 
is enough to govern ; and some, again, think that 
neither teaching nor governing is necessary, but that, 
left to itself, the human soul will grow up of itself, as 
the trees of the forest and the animals of the fields do — - 
that nature is the all-sufficient teacher. There are 
many errors, and somewhat of truth, in each and all 
of these theories. There is an incompleteness in each 
and all of them. 

In order, then, clearly to understand our work — 
our duty toward the new-born soul — we must study its 
nature, its capacities, powers, and susceptibilities, and 
the true mode of their development and culture. This 
inquiry will now claim our careful attention. 



30 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

In the first place, man has a two-fold life. God 
breathed into him the breath of lives. He is endowed 
with animal powers and with spiritual powers, with 
animal life and with spiritual life, and a clear idea of 
this fact underlies all correct moral training, is neces- 
sary to any correct knowledge of the mode in which 
humanity is to be developed and cultivated. 

Man is then an animal. He has all the powers 
and capacities of the animal. In common with the 
brute, he has a material body, which can be kept in 
health only by the use of the means to which the 
brute resorts. This animal life is developed by being, 
through the five senses, brought in contact with the 
material world. Prior to this development, there are 
only powers and capacities ; there is no life. Life 
begins only when the senses begin to act, when the 
animal begins to feel, and hear, and see, and smell, 
and taste. Up to this moment there are undeveloped 
possibilities, but no life ; but when the body comes in 
contact with the outward world, sensations follow, and 
the- animaHife has begun, the animal is born. When 
God made man, he was mere lifeless matter, though 
in the form of man, until He breathed into his body 
the breath of lives ; so now the growing body is mere 
matter, until life begins by the action of the senses. 

Man, then, being a true animal, he is endowed with 
all the wants and powers of animal life. The body 
has its wants, whether it be the body of a man or a 
beaver, and these wants must be supplied, and are to be 
supplied in man and brute by the same means. Food 
and drink must be used by both, and in the same way, 
though they may not be of the same kind. So, too, 
man has appetites and passions in common with the 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT, 31 

brute, and these appetites and passions crave grati- 
fication in us as in them. In all these respects we 
are mere animals, and live a life common to us and 
them. 

The body has to be developed, and the mode of its 
healthy development is clearly pointed out by our in- 
stincts, by our wants themselves. But between man 
and other animals there is this strange difference — the 
brute limits his gratifications of the body to its wanto, 
to its necessities, while man will go beyond these, will 
carry his bodily gratifications so far as to impair its 
healthy action, and ultimately destroy the body itself, 
and then the life dependent upon its organization. 
The brute never carries the gratification of his appe- 
tites and passions to this extent. It is man only that 
is guilty of self-destruction by self-indulgence. There 
is, then, an education of the body, which is essential 
to its healthy action. This tendency to excess in its 
gratifications must be counteracted and restrained 
within such limits as nature teaches. 

In the next place, man is a spirit, and in this re- 
spect he is different from and more than a mere ani- 
mal. He has powers and capacities added on to the 
animal life, and in the development and growth of 
these powers and capacities consist his spiritual life. 
In these powers are found all that constitute man a 
moral and religious being. It is in the development 
of his moral consciousness that brings ipto play and 
exercise those capacities which force us to admit the 
ideas of right and wrong, and develop within us a 
consciousness of obligation and of duty. We feel 
that our happiness depends upon our actions ; that the 
doing of some acts results in happiness, and the doing 



32 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

of others results in misery. While the first set of 
powers look to our acquaintance with matter, these 
spiritual powers have relation to the moral, to the re- 
ligious, to our acquaintance with God. 

By these two classes of capacities and powers, by 
these two natures with which man is endowed, he sus- 
tains relations in two different directions — with the out- 
ward material world and with an unseen and immaterial 
world ; with matter on the one side, and with God on the 
other. We here see how the ancients came to attribute 
two souls to man — by the one dragged down to the 
brutes, and by the other lifted up to angelic natures ; 
by the one allied to earth and the earthly, and by the 
other allied to spirit and to the heavenly. 

These two sets of capacities and powers must each 
have their own appropriate means of development, and 
these means of development must be applied before 
either set of powers can be developed and either kind 
of life begin. In the exercise and culture of the one 
set consists animal life, and in the exercise and cul- 
ture of the other consists our spiritual life ; and each of 
these lives begin only where the appropriate conditions 
exist for the development of each of these respective 
classes of powers and capacities. Until these condi- 
tions do exist, there is no life of any kind ; there exists 
only the possibility of a life or lives. 

Now we know that animal life is developed the mo- 
ment that a sensation takes place ; that it is through 
sensation as the appropriate condition that the animal 
life is born, is developed, begins to act. Sensation is 
then the organ of animal life — the condition upon which 
its existence, its development depends. 

Our spiritual life depends upon other conditions, 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 33 

and requires the action and agency of other organs. 
Our spiritual life depends upon a knowledge of God, 
and our duties and relations to Him ; and out of this 
relation we sustain to Him grow our duties to ourselves 
and to others. These truths and facts come not within 
the cognizance of the senses, since these can convey 
to us only a knowledge of the outward and material 
world; while this spiritual knowledge, this knowledge 
for the spirit, depends upon immaterial facts and ideal 
relations arising out of these immaterial facts. 

The organ or faculty through and by which our spir- 
itual nature is brought in communion with these spir- 
itual facts, truths, and relations is the reason. By reason 
is man, as a spiritual being, enabled to open up an in- 
tercourse with the spiritual world, with God, and the 
truths and relations which depend upon this great idea 
of a divine Creator and Governor. Reason is to our 
spiritual powers, our spiritual life, what sensation is to 
our animal powers, our animal life. 

Man also has his knowing powers and capacities ; 
the ability to study his sensations upon the one hand, 
and spiritual facts and truths upon the other. The one 
may be called the understandings and the other the 
intellect. The understa7iding is the faculty which 
judges according to sense, which studies our sensa- 
tions, and forms perceptions or notions of what they 
are, how produced and by what produced, and of the 
relations and truths which grow out of these facts of 
sensation. It is the scientific faculty, dealing with the 
material world, and working out of its knowledge of 
it all natural sciences. Man possesses this capacity 
in common with the brute, but in a much higher de- 
3 



34 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

gree ; but this scientific faculty still is a part of our an- 
imal life, since it deals only with facts and relations, a 
knowledge of which we obtain only through sensation. 
The science of astronomy, vast as may be its generali- 
zations, is a mere science of matter, of the material 
world and the relations of its various parts. In all this 
there is no idea of duty, of right and of wrong, or of 
God. It enunciates, embodies only the relations of 
particles or bodies of matter to each other ; its stand- 
points in a mere sensation, and in our perception of 
the cause of that sensation, which is matter. The 
understanding then deals only with the material ; it is 
the mind as thinking according to the flesh, of which 
St. Paul speaks, and which, dependent upon the body, 
does not survive its dissolution. 

The intellect is that faculty which studies spiritual . 
facts and truths and their relations. By spiritual facts 
and truths, I mean those facts and truths which are 
adapted, are capable, when brought through reason to 
the soul, to develop its spiritual powers and capacities, 
to originate the spiritual life. The fact, the admission 
of which necessarily involves all the others, is the ex- 
istence of a God who created and governs. Now the 
intellect studies these facts, verifies the evidence which 
they offer of their existence, and discovers the rela- 
tions which exist between them ; between God, on the 
one hand, and man, His spiritual child, upon the other. 
Out of these facts the intellect can construct systems 
of science, or wisdom, or philosophy — a science of the 
spiritual world and of the relations which exist among 
the facts of this spiritual world. It is the mind or 
thought according to the spirit, as mentioned b}' St. 
Paul, 8 Romans, 6 ; it is the mind examining and com- 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 35 

paring spiritual facts and truths for the purpose of de- 
veloping and perfecting the spiritual life. It is the 
faculty which constructs theologies, a science of the 
divine. 

To the understanding belong memory and fancy ; 
to the intellect, memory and imagination. Fancy im- 
itates, repeats the real, the outward, combines percep- 
tions, the real, and thus creates monsters; while, on 
the other hand, imagination regards the outward, the 
real, in a spiritual point of view, and throws into the 
real an idea and a unity of which the understanding, 
the fancy, is incapable. It is the organ or power through 
or by which the spirit looks out upon this material, 
outward world, and shapes to itself an idea of it. The 
imagination makes use of the real, the outward, to give 
expression to its own idea, and thus imparts to the real 
an ideal value, an ideal perfection. All high art is 
the work of the imagination, and all art consisting in 
the mere imitation of the real is the work of the fancy. 
The spiritual man can comprehend the animal man, 
but the animal man can not comprehend the spiritual 
man ; or, in other words, the intellect can take in a 
knowledge of the material, outward world, but the un- 
derstanding can not comprehend, can not obtain a 
knowledge of those ideas which belong to the intellect, 
to the spirit. 2 Corinthians, 14, 15. This is the doc- 
trine of St. Paul, as will be seen by consulting the pas- 
sage referred to. The imagination then shapes the idea 
of the outward for the benefit of the spiritual man. 
Thus, while the spiritual is inconceivable to the un- 
derstanding, to the animal or natural man, and the per- 
ceptions and conceptions of the understanding, the out- 
ward world, are comprehended by the intellect, by the 



36 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

spiritual, and have for the spiritual man a deep signifi- 
cance, since in these are seen embodied and reflected 
the greatness, power, and wisdom of that spiritual God 
who is the Creator and Preserver and Governor of all. 
Through the imagination the spiritual man shapes for 
himself an idea of the outward, the material, as well 
as of that unseen and revealed world where spirits only 
can live and move and have their being. To the spir- 
itual eye, looking at it in the light of the imagination, 
the outward world assumes a significance, a perfection, 
a harmony, and a beauty which it never possesses for 
the understanding looking at it through the natural 
eye. To the imagination, the outward becomes the 
expression of an idea, a thought; while to the under- 
standing it appears simply as dead matter, as a simple 
fact. But while this is true of the material world, the 
revealed w r orld, the true ideal world must appear cir- 
cumscribed and finite, and below the reality ; still it is 
the highest idea that the spiritual man can shape of 
that unseen reality w r hich he knows now but imper- 
fectly, but in part, but which will hereafter be revealed 
to him in its glorious reality, when we all shajl see as 
we are seen, and know as we are known. 

To the animal man, or nature, belong appetites and 
passions, pains and pleasures. Our appetites are 
given us as a means of preserving this animal life. 
"When the body suffers or needs nutriment, the appe- 
tites become a cause of uneasiness, of pain, and thus 
call loudly for gratification. Among our passions 
is anger, w r hich is brought into activity by the pre- 
sentation of the appropriate occasion, and becomes the 
causes often of prompt and vigorous action, by which 
danger is avoided and life protected. Pains and 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 37 

pleasures are the effects produced in the body — the 
latter by a healthy, regular play of all its organs and 
functions ; the former by an unhealthy, diseased, and 
disordered action of the powers and functions of ani- 
mal life. Pains give us notice that our bodily func- 
tions are out of order, are diseased, and require relief. 
Pleasure gives us information that the body is in a 
healthy condition ; that all its functions are performed 
according to the laws of their normal condition. These 
sensations are therefore of vital importance to us, as 
without them the preservation of life would be impos- 
sible. But all of these appetites and passions may, 
by over-indulgence, themselves become diseased, and 
thus an occasion of danger and death, instead of safety 
and health. It is therefore of the deepest importance 
that the animal man should be wisely educated and 
trained, if health and pleasure are to be his portion 
rather than disease and pain. 

To the spiritual man belong wants, yearnings, and 
emotions. There are spiritual wants, which, if once 
developed, create in us a constant state of misery, un- 
less they find their appropriate gratification. In the 
supply of these wants the spirit finds its enjoyment, 
its joy, its happiness, while in the absence of them we 
feel miserable. There are laws of health, if I may 
be permitted the expression, for the spirit, as well as 
for the body, an observance of which is as necessary 
to secure happiness of the one as pleasure for the 
other. The powers of life in both cases must act in 
conformity to the law impressed upon them, or there 
will be a disturbance, discord, and the effect must be 
pain in the body and misery in the spirit — suffering in 
either case. 



38 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

Hope also belongs to the spirit, and may be consid- 
ered as the voice of those yearnings of which we are 
all conscious. In hope we find a great and constant 
stimulus to action, to activity, in order that we ma}^ 
acquire, attain the thing we hope for. 

The emotions also belong to the spirit — to the spir- 
itual man. These are to the spirit what the feelings 
of pain and pleasure are to the body. In the devel- 
opment of these emotions is found the final result and 
the legitimate effects of all right action, of all right 
living. These emotions are the effects, the results of 
other influences acting upon the spiritual man, as 
much as the feelings.of pleasure and pain are the re- 
sults of other influences acting upon the body. These 
emotions are also of two kinds, the one class being 
the source or cause of misery, and the other of happi- 
ness. „ Among these are the emotions of self-approba- 
tion and disapprobation, of merit and demerit, of self- 
approval and self-condemnation, under the conscious- 
ness of right-doing and wrong-doing. The action of 
these emotions is conscience, that accusing and excus- 
ing which take place in every human soul in view of 
its own actions. In addition to these are the emotions 
of love and hate — the first, a state of soul which is 
joy, happiness, a peace that passes understanding; 
the second, a state of spirit which is misery, anguish, 
agony, which also surpass the comprehension of the 
understanding. The emotion called love has also a 
three-fold development — the love of the true, the beau- 
tiful, and the good; and each form of it is developed 
or excited by appropriate conditions. The student in 
search of the true, on the discovery of some new truth 
or fact, as power in nature or mind, feels the happy 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 39 

glow of this emotion, and in it is rewarded for all his 
toil, anxiety, and self-denial. The artist, when he 
has, as poet, or painter, or sculptor, embodied . some 
ideal conception of his imagination, experiences the 
same glow of joy, and harvests a like reward ; while 
the good man, wherever he discovers goodness in 
others, whether in thought or action, is all on fire 
with that highest form of love which binds spirit to 
spirit, and spirit to God, in a union of universal beati- 
tude. 

Hate, on the other hand, is developed when the 
spirit, under a clear perception of the right, embodied 
in a being capable of enforcing obedience to it, refuses 
this obedience, and stands up in opposition and in re- 
bellion to the right and its enforcer. Then is his spirit 
on fire with hate, intensified by the stings of an accus- 
ing conscience. The spirit which hates feels the 
burning of that fire which is never quenched, and the 
gnawings of that worm which never dies. Happiness, 
therefore, is found in such a development of the spir- 
itual life as results in the production of those emotions 
which are called love — love to the true, the beautiful, 
and the good ; love to man and to God. This is that 
state of spirit, of soul, called a peace which passes 
understanding ; while misery is the result of such a 
development of the spiritual life as brings into exercise 
the painful emotions, the emotions of an accusing con- 
science and of intense hate. With the soul full of 
these emotions, man must be miserable — can not be 
otherwise. 

The emotions are not directly under the control of 
the will. We can not call them up as we wish. They 
are the result, the consequence, the effect of other 



4-0 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

states of the intellect and spirit. The emotion of 
beauty can only be experienced in view of a beautiful 
object or action. These are the appropriate objects to 
excite it. So love of the good and the true will only 
arise on the presentation of truth or goodness to the 
intellect ; nor can we love man or God until the mind 
discovers in the man or in God those moral qualities 
calculated and designed to call into action this emotion 
of love, which is the cord of union and the happiness 
of humanity. We can not love a bad man — one in 
whom we can discover no lovable qualities ; so we 
can not love God until His existence and character are 
revealed to us, and we see and comprehend His good- 
ness and His mercies to humanity and the world. 
There is, then, a training necessary to the develop- 
ment of our spiritual powers, and a peculiar life to be 
wrought out, in order that our emotional nature should 
be developed, and love to man and God be made to 
fill our hearts. If, therefore, we would love, we must 
think rightly of God and man and the world — see the 
true, the beautiful, and the good everywhere and in 
every one. Then we shall love — we must love — all 
persons and everything ; then we shall gather up hap- 
piness from every object and action and thought, until 
our cup of joy should overflow in a blessedness which 
is not of earth, but of heaven. 

I have carried this analysis of humanity as far as is 
necessary for my present study. I have simply en- 
deavored to ascertain certain facts in psychology with- 
out propounding theories or elaborating explanations. 
We thus see that our knowledge of matter is obtained 
through sensation. Hence the animal life depends 
alone upon the existence of sensation. As soon as the 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 41 

child is born — nay, earlier — his animal life begins, 
and is necessarily kept up as long as sensation re- 
mains. Our animal education, then, is of necessity 
carried on, and our appetites and passions necessarily 
developed into action. 

This is not the case with our spiritual life. The 
truth, which alone can develop our spiritual or moral 
powers, can not be obtained through our sensational na- 
ture and life. It must come from some other source, 
be communicated in some other way. Whether we 
make all spiritual knowledge depend upon revelation 
or not, we must admit that the child can practically 
obtain this knowledge, so essential to his well-being, 
in no other way. The child must have these facts 
and truths revealed to him, either directly by God or 
by some one who has received them directly or indi- 
rectly from Him. The revealer is one who conveys 
to the mind of another a fact or truth of which he was 
ignorant, and of which he would have known nothing 
except from such revelation. In this respect every 
teacher is a revealer of new truths and facts to his 
pupils ; and the parent, above any other, is a revealer 
of religious facts and truths to his child. From him 
must or should come to the child its knowledge of the 
divine, of the spiritual. It is by this revelation that 
the spiritual development and life of the child must 
begin and be carried on. Without it, the spiritual 
would remain dormant and dead, while the animal is 
gaining vigor and activity. 

In the conflicts between these two natures and lives 
lies the conflict of life. If the animal in man obtains 
the mastery, then the spirit is crushed out, and the 
man becomes degraded to the brute, is a mere animal ; 



42 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

while, if the spirit obtains the ascendency, the man 
grows up into the spiritual image of his Maker, and his 
animal nature becomes subdued and subordinated to 
the spiritual life and its laws. The object, then, of all 
education should be to develop the spiritual power in 
man, so that he may hold in subjection his animal na- 
ture to his. spiritual wants. Here we see an illustra- 
tion of that conflict between the law of the members 
and the law of the spirit, of which St. Paul speaks so 
earnestly and feelingly. The law of animal life, the 
law by which our animal appetites and passions act, is 
directly in conflict with the law of the spirit. Grati- 
fication is the law of the one, and restraint, denial, in 
obedience to a law out of and above us, is the law of 
the other. Self-gratification is the law of the one, 
and self-denial the law of the other. 

In the education and training of a human being, it 
will thus be seen that there are two things to be re- 
garded — first, the development of the animal man, 
and, secondly, the development of the spiritual man. 
The animal powers are to be developed into healthy 
action, and the understanding educated, so that it may 
study and comprehend all the facts coming through 
sensation to its cognizance. The body is subordinate 
to the spirit, and hence is to be developed and culti- 
vated in reference and in subordination to this higher 
life, the perfection of which is the object and end of 
all life. 

Two things are also to be kept in view in the devel- 
opment of the spiritual powers, capacities, life. The 
first is the revealing to the reason of those spiritual 
truths which alone can bring into activity the spiritual 
powers and capacities; and second, the education of 



THE CHILD, THE SUBJECT. 43 

the intellect, so that it may be able to study and ap- 
prehend these spiritual facts and truths ; but the end 
to be aimed at is to bring into activity the emotions of 
love, which is the perfecting of humanity and the ful- 
filling of the law. 

It will further be seen that the spiritual life can not 
be developed from within through the action of the 
understanding upon the facts obtained through sensa- 
tion. A child left to itself and the teachings of nature 
will remain an animal, will never have any religious 
or moral development or ideas — must remain ignorant 
of God and of all ideas of a right and a wrong. We 
here see the absurdity of that theory of humanity 
which would leave it to itself, without ever teaching 
those spiritual facts and truths, a knowledge and 
admission of which are essential to any and all moral 
development and spiritual culture. To refuse to teach 
a child these spiritual facts and truths is to leave it an 
animal, a slave to* its animal appetites and passions. 
The child, then, must be taught these spiritual, these 
religious facts and truths, if it is to become other than an 
animal — if it is to be born of the spirit, and begin that 
spirit life which outlives the body to flourish in ever- 
lasting blessedness in that spirit world of which God 
is the light thereof. 

This vital distinction between our animal powers, 
our animal life, and our spiritual powers, our spiritual 
life, and the different modes of their development and 
culture, lies at the foundation of all correct opinions 
upon the subject of education. This distinction once 
admitted, and we may see clearly the reason why so 
many fatal mistakes have been made by well-inten- 
tioned persons, who lose sight of the spiritual in their 



44 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

attention to the animal. We may here also see how 
it must be true that children who are neglected and 
left to the teachings of nature and the streets become 
criminals, are being educated for crime and not other- 
wise. The only thing to be astonished at 5 is that so 
many stop short of actual crime, seeing how utterly 
they are neglected by those who should be their teach- 
ers of those divine truths which alone can secure their 
spiritual development and life, which are the only ef- 
fectual protection against the tyranny of brutal pas- 
sions, and lawlessness and crime. 

With this distinction in view, the parent can see what 
his work is, and how it is to be carried on. The spirit 
is to be developed by a revelation to the reason of di- 
vine truth ; all else is subordinate to this highest of all 
work. The mind is to be cultivated only as a means 
to the accomplishment of this higher end, while our 
animal wants are to be provided for ; because without 
this, mind and spirit have no power of action. Mate- 
rial interests and growth are therefore of minor im- 
portance, and never should be suffered to engross the 
attention and enslave the spirit ; the first should ever 
be kept subordinate to the latter. 



THE FAMILY, THE MEDIUM. 45 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FAMILY, THE MEDIUM. 

The child is born into the family. Such is the 
divine arrangement for the nurture and culture of a 
human soul. On its entrance upon life, the child is 
incapable of providing for its material wants, and ig- 
norant of its spiritual necessities. Hence the family 
is provided as the medium into which every human 
soul is thrown on coming into the world, as the place 
where it first commences the development of its nat- 
ural and spiritual lives, and where it receives its first 
culture. The character, then, of the family becomes a 
matter of vital importance to the future welfare of the 
child who is subjected to its influence, since the train- 
ing there begun will depend upon this character. As 
the family is, the child will be. Whatever feelings and 
emotions and relations exist in the family will be devel- 
oped and nurtured in the child. 

We have seen that the child is endowed with ani- 
mal capacities, with appetites and passions ; with 
spiritual capacities, with the emotions, among which 
is a love of the true, the good, and the beautiful. This 
spiritual, therefore, is to be developed and cultivated, 
while the animal is to be restrained and denied. The 
power of the first is to be strengthened, and that of 
the latter to be weakened. It will thus be seen that 
our emotional nature ought to be roused into action, 
and the family is appointed as a means for the ac- 



46 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

complishment of this great end, this first step in the 
spiritual life of humanity. 

Among these emotions, the most important is that 
of love. Its opposite spiritual emotion is that of hate. 
The one is the joy, and the other is misery. It is, then, 
all-important that this joyful emotion of love should 
be developed in the soul as early as possible, and its 
opposite, hate, should remain undeveloped. Now, 
our emotions are brought into action by the presentation 
of the proper condition, and not otherwise. Among 
these conditions is that of love and kindness on the 
part of others. We can not avoid loving the good, 
and kind, and loving. Love begets love, and smiles 
answer to smiles. This is the law of human develop- 
ment. On the other hand, unkindness, ill treatment, 
angry feelings, will produce their like in the bosom of 
another. Hate begets hate. 

Such being the law of humanity, we see what should 
be the character of the family, of its members — what 
the spirit which should pervade that charmed circle. 
Its bond of union should be love, and the intercourse 
of its members should be marked by kindness and 
gentleness. The heads of the family must be united 
by a love which is superior to all the accidents and 
disappointments and trials of this mortal life. What- 
ever may happen, come disappointment and trial, the 
heads of the family should ever be loving and gentle 
and kind in their intercourse with each other, and with 
all those within the family circle. The child should 
be born into an atmosphere of love and gentleness 
and kindness. It should be received into life with 
smiles, and nursed with that affection that never sleeps 
and never tires. Thrown into such a family, the child 



THE FAMiLY, THE MEDIUM. 47 

must learn to love ; the medium in which it lives must 
and will develop in it its emotional capacities, and fill 
and warm its little bosom with the sweet flame of a 
never-dying love. Its spiritual nature will be devel- 
oped and cultivated and strengthened, while its ani- 
mal nature will be kept within proper bounds, and not 
unnaturally developed and intensified. The child will 
thus, on its first entrance upon life, before its under- 
standing and intellect are so developed that it is able 
itself to see the prudent and the right, start right — 
start as a spirit, and not as an animal. 

On the other hand, if the family circle is pervaded 
with a spirit of hatred and unkindness, the child must 
partake of its influence. Parents can not hate and 
quarrel with each other without impressing upon all 
within their influence the spirit which burns within 
their own bosoms. The heart filled with hate, and, 
of necessity, with misery, can not fail to treat the new- 
born child with harshness and unkindness. The child 
is received with a scowl, instead of a smile; with a 
blow, instead of a loving kiss ; with neglect, instead 
of that eager attention which true affection bestows 
upon its loved ones. Instead of harmony and order 
in the family circle, there is discord and wrangling, 
unkind words and bitter reproaches. Under such an 
influence, the worst passions and emotions of the child 
must be developed and strengthened. Anger, instead 
of forbearance — hate, instead of love — will spring up 
in the infant mind, and its first start in life will be 
wrong, instead of right ; and this Wrong start will in- 
fluence for evil all its future, and prove the cause and 
source of untold misery and burning agony. 

The family, too, should present an exhibition of 



48 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

neatness and order. If the child is to have his love 
of neatness and order excited and developed, it must 
see them constantly before its eyes ; but if the family 
presents only scenes of disorder and a want of neat- 
ness, the child will insensibly imbibe a love for such 
habits, which will follow it through life. The child 
will show what the family has been, what the mother 
especially was, since her influence is felt more than 
that of the father. Upon her depends very much 
what shall be the character and influence of home 
upon the child. To qualify the mother wisely and 
properly to fulfill her duties as a wife and a mother, 
she needs no ordinary culture, no common wisdom ; 
though, above all, she needs a loving heart and untir- 
ing gentleness and kindness, and a firmness which 
never fails in enforcing dutjr. 

The family must also be made pleasant and agree- 
able to the members of it. Children should there find 
their sweetest joys and their happiest hours. Home 
should be more attractive to the child, to all its mem- 
bers, than any other place can be. For this purpose, 
the father and the mother should be there to guide and 
instruct and interest. If the father is away when busi- 
ness does not call for his absence, the sons will be 
liable to follow his example ; and if the mother spends 
her leisure hours abroad, the daughters will be apt 
to imitate her example. Parents teach by example 
much more emphatically than by precept. In the 
long evenings of winter, the family should, if possi- 
ble, be clustered around the- fireside, and busy in the 
various avocations which interest each and all ; the 
children inquiring for knowledge, for information, and 



THE FAMTLY, THE MEDIUM. 49 

the parents wisely imparting it and guiding the minds 
of their children into all truth. 

As children grow up, more effort must be made to 
render home attractive. It is at that youthful age that 
their attention and interest are called to scenes abroad, 
away from home and home influences. To counter- 
act this tendency, an interest must be created for them 
at home. It is vain to expect a child to remain at 
home without employment, without recreation, without 
aught to excite his emotions, and thus attach him to 
home. His passions find gratification in the variety 
of scenes met with abroad, and this pleasure must be 
counteracted by a higher and purer joy, aroused in 
the soul by the gentler glow of the emotions stimu- 
lated by purer thoughts and more elevating subjects 
of contemplation. The imagination must be brought 
into exercise, and the mind must learn to look out 
upon the material world through the power of this 
idealizing faculty, which clothes with beauty and unity 
whatever comes within its reach. The spiritual pow- 
ers are to be regarded more than the animal ; the emo- 
tions, the love of the beautiful, the true, and the good, 
are to be cultivated, if the child is to avoid the fatal 
mistake of finding pleasure in the play of the pas- 
sions. 

For this purpose, the mind must be cultivated, the 
habit of reading must be early formed. Books, there- 
fore, must be procured — such books as will interest 
and absorb the youthful mind. To do this, the books 
must be such that their perusal will call into play the 
emotional nature. When this is done, the child will 
be interested, will be captivated. While books which 

4 



5<3 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

would tend to stimulate a development of the passions 
of our animal nature are to be carefully avoided, al- 
most any other books may be profitably put into the 
hands of children. The important thing to be sought 
for, is to make home of deeper interest to the child 
than any other place in the world can be. He will 
then remain at home, and never wander away into 
dangerous haunts and mix with dangerous compan- 
ions. The child therefore needs to be interested. He 
had better read anything at home than to wander away 
where vice puts on her blandest smiles and presents 
her most enticing pleasures. Let the child, therefore, 
read almost anything rather than not read at all. It 
must be left somewhat to its own choice. It will read 
what interests it, and it alone can decide upon the book 
which will do that. Never force a child to read what 
is tedious to it. The parents are to scatter around it 
books of various kinds, and leave the child to make its 
own selection. 

Children are usually interested at first in biography, 
travels, and novels. Works which treat of abstruse 
subjects are above their comprehension, and hence not 
interesting. Novels generally interest children ; and 
the reason for it is, that such works call into play the 
emotions, wake up in the child those loves which are 
supposed to agitate and warm the hearts of the va- 
rious characters described. Some persons have scru- 
ples about the reading of such books ; but their scruples 
are worse than mistakes — they are crimes, since they 
hinder the progress of their children. Works of fic- 
tion, if well written, are truer to humanity than his- 
tory, or even than much biography. The great object 
is to develop in the child those emotions which are a 



THE FAMILY, THE MEDIUM. 51 

part of his spiritual nature. Novels will contribute to 
do this, and hence constitute a beneficial agency in 
the spiritual education of the child. A proper selec- 
tion can be made, the influence of which can not fail 
to be beneficial. Such works as Irving's, Scott's, 
Cooper's, Miss Austin's, Bronte's, etc., can only profit, 
if they are read by the child. As the mind becomes 
strengthened and developed, works of history and 
science will become interesting, and the habit of read- 
ing be carried on through life. It must be repeated ; 
the main thing is to have children read something at 
home, as a means of keeping them there, instead of 
leaving them to wander abroad in the by-paths of vice, 
which always terminate at the gateway of crime. 

The parents should set an example. If, in the long 
evenings of winter, in hours of leisure, the mother or 
father seem absorbed and interested in their books, the 
children will call for theirs in order to imitate the pa- 
rental example. Conversation, too, may run on books. 
The parents and older children will discuss the merits 
or interest of the books which they read, and the 
younger ones will become interested, and eager to read 
for themselves these stories, and histories, and lives, 
and travels so full of interest and wonder to others. 
In this way, if the parents read, the children will also 
read, and ) 7 ou will see a reading family, the children 
of \vhich are ever around the domestic fireside, ab- 
sorbed in their studies, growing up into home-bred men 
and women, with their spiritual natures fully developed. 
Such children become in their maturity the light of 
the world and the salt of the earth. 

Children should be made to feel an interest in the 
current events of the times, with the varied habits and 



52 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

conditions of the nations of the world, contrasted with 
their own. The newspaper and the review will there- 
fore be an essential part of the literature of every 
family. The most important current events should be 
run over and discussed between parents and children 
around that dear fireside, where cluster all the home 
affections, the richest and sweetest which a human soul 
can experience. 

The mother can do much in this work of guiding 
the children aright, and interesting their minds in 
books, if she herself is an intelligent, reading woman. 
She will talk of books, of what they contain interest- 
ing and strange, and thus stimulate the curiosity of 
her children to know more of these books and their say- 
ings. On the other hand, if the mother is ignorant 
and frivolous, given to idle talk, to current slander, 
and to vanity, the children will almost certainly par- 
take of her mental and moral habits of thought and 
conversation. The mother; then, must be a reading and 
thinking woman — one whose bosom glows with every 
noble emotion ; who loves all that is true and beautiful 
and good ; who sees truth and beauty and goodness 
everywhere, and in everything; who has no narrow 
and selfish views and aims, but whose heart burns with 
a charity as comprehensive as humanity. With such 
a mother for a companion and a guide, the child is 
ever in the presence and under the influence of the 
highest manifestation of humanity, and day by day 
will be shaped into its more perfect image, and its mind 
become filled with higher and nobler and purer 
thoughts. Such a mother is indeed a blessing, nay, 
a benediction to her children ; and when she is old, 
they shall rise up and call her blessed. But I must 



THE FAMILY, THE MEDIUM. 53 

not carry this discussion further here, as my sole ob- 
ject now is to enforce the simple duty that home must 
be made attractive, and that this can be done only by 
the cultivation of habits of reading in the young. 

The condition of the family is then an essential ele- 
ment in its beneficial action upon the child. If the 
family, if home is what God in His providence provided 
it should be, its influence can not fail to be powerful 
and happy upon the development and character of the 
child ; its spiritual powers will be drawn out under this 
influence, while the animal nature will be repressed 
and held in proper subordination ; the habit of self- 
denial will be formed, whereby the animal will be con- 
trolled by the law of the spirit within. It here receives 
such a training, ere intellect and reason are developed — 
such a direction that, when reason comes to grasp spir- 
itual truth, the child has already his habits shaped to 
that life which reason declares it ought to pursue. Its 
passions and appetites have been held in check, instead 
of being unnaturally intensified ; its spiritual emotions 
have been brought into action, instead of hate. Such 
a training, such a development, is an immense advan- 
tage to the young immortal just entering on the conflict 
of life ; the battle has almost been won, and little more 
remains to be done but to gather up the fruits of this 
victory of the spiritual over the animal, the carnal. 



54 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PARENTS THEIR POSITION. 

The first duty of parents is to prepare the family for 
their offspring. We have seen what the family should 
be in order that it may exert a happy influence upon 
the child. To organize the family, marriage has-been 
instituted, and as love must be the living spirit of the 
family, the union of husband and wife must and should 
never take place unless that mutual love exists between . 
them which alone can bind them together and make 
home their paradise. A union formed in the absence 
of this mutual love is one formed in violation of the 
divine appointment, and can be productive only of dis- 
cord, hate, and misery. Their influence will not, can 
not tend to develop love in the child, unless its flame 
burns warmly in their own bosoms ; if they do not love 
each other, their children will not love them ; if they 
hate each other, their children will hate them and each 
other. There is then a solemn preparation to be made 
on the part of the new married pair in order properly 
to receive the new comer which God may bestow upon 
them. The happiness or misery of this new comer to 
a great extent depends upon this preparation, upon 
the action and the influence of the family, of which 
by their union they have laid the foundation. Do par- 
ents well consider this fearful truth? Do those who 
seek by marriage to found the family, fully appreciate, 
fully comprehend their awful responsibilities, the 



PARENTS THEIR POSITION. 55 

solemn duties which they assume? It is to be feared 
that they do not ; it is to be feared that self-gratifica- 
tion too often limits the extent of their views, and ren- 
ders them reckless of the future in the fruition of the 
present. 

The duty of the parent to the child is apparent from 
the condition in which it comes into the world. It is 
born an animal, and if left to the teachings of nature, 
to its self-development, it will remain only an animal. 
Its animal powers and capacities will be developed, 
while its spiritual will remain dormant. 

That this assertion that we are born animals is true, 
is apparent to every one thoroughly acquainted with 
human psychology ; nor is it less true according to the 
teaching of the Bible. Christ said to Nicodemus : 
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that 
which is born of the spirit is spirit." Here the fact of 
a double birth is clearly taught ; and this second birth 
is a spiritual one, to be experienced after that of our 
natural birth. Christ said also to Nicodemus, that 
he must be born again — be born from above, be born 
of the spirit, or he could not enter into the kingdom 
of God, which is a spiritual kingdom. Here, then, is 
taught the doctrine that the birth of the spirit takes 
place after our natural birth, upon which our animal 
life depends. So in I Corinthians xv. 46, the like 
doctrine is asserted. The spiritual is not first, but 
first the natural, the animal, and after that the spir- 
itual. Our spiritual t>irth, then, comes after our nat- 
ural birth. By the one our animal life is begun, and 
by the other our spiritual life. Birth is that event 
which indicates or develops the first activities of life. 
Our spiritual birth, then, takes place whenever we 



56 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

experience within our spirits the development of its 
powers and the commencement of its activities. These 
powers, these possibilities are converted into activities 
by the presentation of divine truth, those spiritual ideas 
which are alone addressed to the reason — ideas of a 
spirit world, of God, and law, and duty. When once 
the reason has taken hold of these ideas by faith, the 
spiritual life is born, its activities are developed, and 
we are conscious of a higher nature, of higher powers, 
of a higher destiny than that which depends upon our 
animal life. 

The first thing, then, to be done by the parent, after 
providing for the material wants of the child, is, by the 
presentation of the appropriate truths and ideas, to 
bring about this spiritual birth, to develop these spir- 
itual powers yet lying dormant in the child. This can 
only be done by revealing to the reason of the child 
those spiritual facts and ideas and truths which can 
alone bring into activity the spiritual in man. But the 
child is ignorant of these truths — indeed, can not ob- 
tain them until they are revealed to him by another 
mind. Hence it is the duty of the parent to reveal 
those facts, to teach those truths, which constitute the 
means of moral culture. As the reason of the child 
is undeveloped, it can not know, can not decide upon 
these truths, upon these revelations and this teaching. 
It must rely upon the parent's reason, not its own. 
The parent, then, as the revealer and teacher, must 
reveal and teach what he believes to be the truth upon 
this great question of the spiritual life. Error may be 
taught ; the parent may be mistaken ; but still he can 
only teach what he believes to be the truth. 

In the next place, the child is to subdue its animal 



PARENTS — THEIR POSITION. 57 

nature, and bring it into subjection to the law received 
into the spirit. But the animal is born first, and hence 
is stronger than the spiritual power in the child. It 
is then to be aided in governing itself in this work of 
subduing nature to spirit, disobedience to obedience, 
gratification to self-denial. It is then also the duty of 
the parent to govern as well as to reveal and teach. 

It will thus be seen that the parent stands in God's 
stead in relation to his child. He is its lawgiver and 
its governor. The child, until its intellect and reason 
are sufficiently developed, must depend upon its parent 
for the law of its life — for that truth through which 
alone it is or can be born of the spirit. The parent is 
bound to learn the truth, the right, and reveal it to his 
child. He receives God's revelation of Himself, and 
he must reveal it to the mind and reason of the child, 
who receives it from him as from its God. The parent, 
then, is to teach the child what it ought to do, and to 
constrain it to do it. He knows what the child ought 
to do, and what it ought not to do — how and when it 
should deny its animal cravings in obedience to the 
law of God. He knows the way in which the child 
ought to go, and it is his duty to train it up in the way 
it should go. Teaching and governing are, then, the 
two great parental duties, upon a faithful execution of 
which depends the future of the child, whether it shall 
be a disgrace or an honor to them, a curse or a bless- 
ing to society. 



58 CRIME AND THE FAMILY, 



CHAPTER VIII. 



GOVERNMENT. 



Government must begin before teaching. The ani- 
mal life commences with the natural birth, and its 
tendency is to excess, to the acquisition of an absolute 
rule over the yet unborn spirit. This tendency has to 
be checked, to be subdued. To do this, the child 
must learn the habit of self-denial — that habit of refus- 
ing to act in conformity to the teachings of nature, to 
the cravings of the body. This self-denial must result 
from an act of volition. It can not be forced against 
the will ; hence the will must be constrained to action 
by some other motives than those which a mature rea- 
son may offer. The child must learn to obey before 
it knows the reasons for obedience ; it must obey sim- 
ply because the parent requires obedience. In every 
act of obedience there is an act of self-denial, an act 
of moral discipline. From obeying the Jaw laid down 
by parental authority and enforced by parental power, 
it learns the habit of obedience, and thus the more 
easily will it afterward yield to the law laid down by 
its own reason. The teachings of nature are to follow 
the cravings of the body. The training of the parent 
should be to learn and habituate the child to yield 
obedience to a law coming from without, enacted by 
one above and independent of him. As an animal, 
the child yields to the cravings of the body, to appe- 
tites and passions. But this animal law is to be eub- 



GOVERNMENT. 59 



dued ; the child is to be brought under the law of the 
spirit, by which the will and conduct are to "be influ- 
enced and directed ; the animal is to be brought under 
subjection to the spirit. and the law of the reason, in- 
stead of being influenced by mere animal appetites 
and passions. The bodily appetites crave for gratifi- 
cation, and the child must form the habit of denying 
to the body this gratification. Herein is seen the con- 
flict of life, the war between the law in the members 
and the law in the mind. -I have placed this point in 
various aspects in order that all may understand it ; 
for on a clear perception of this conflict between the 
animal and spiritual in man depends our attaining any 
satisfactory knowledge of the necessity and nature of 
all government. 

The duty of parents is plain and simple. They 
know what the child ought to do, or ought not to do; 
and it is their duty to see that the child does do what 
it ought, and does not do what it ought not to do. 
They are to train it up in the way it should go. The 
child is ignorant of all this, knows not what is or is 
not for its own advantage ; all knowledge it has leads 
it to follow instinct, the cravings of the body. Shall 
the parent yield up his child to the guidance of its 
animal nature ? Shall he allow it to do what he knows 
it ought not to do, because it will cry if he constrains 
it to act as he knows it ought to act? But one answer 
can be given to these questions — the parent must con- 
strain his child to do right, however painful it may be. 
On this point there must be no hesitation, no omission, 
no failure. 

Providence has, however, ordered that these painful 
conflicts shall not often be repeated. The .child that 



60 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

has once been made to deny itself a bodily gratifica- 
tion yields much more readily the second time, and, 
after a number of trials, the habit of yielding, of self- 
denial, becomes formed, and the child obeys as of 
course. To put certain examples : A child refuses to 
sleep, unless nursed to sleep in its mother's arms. 
Now, let the child be made to lie down and go to 
sleep without this nursing. It will probably rebel, 
and cry the first and second times ; but, after a few 
trials, it will lie down and go to sleep as quietly as a 
grown-up person. The reason is, that the child has 
now acquired the power to subdue its feelings and act 
in obedience to a law from without. A child, again, 
will get angry and cry, because it can not have some- 
thing it wants. Gratify it, and it will insist upon a 
like gratification the second and e^ery future time ; 
but let it be constrained to deny itself this gratifica- 
tion, though it may be accompanied with much grief 
and resistance, and it will, after a few repetitions, ac- 
quire the power of self-denial, and yield obedience to 
authority as gently and as readily as any other well- 
trained animal. A child will, when taken to a table, 
lay its hands upon everything within its reach. Let 
it continue to do so, and by and by it will be impossi- 
ble to take it to the table, as it will lay its hands upon 
any and everything, and, if then forced to desist, a 
storm of anger and passion and hate will be exhibited 
which it is frightful to witness ; but let the mother, the ■ 
first time the child reaches for anything, snap its 
finger, and repeat this just as often as the wrong act 
is repeated, and, after a few trials, the child will de- 
sist, and may thereafter be taken to the table, where it 
will conduct itself as well as a grown-up person, never 



GOVERNMENT. 6l 



touching or disturbing an article any more than the 
best bred gentleman in the land. The moment the 
child finds that it can not gratify the cravings of 
the body or the curiosity of the eye without suffering 
pain, it will think no more of it ; habits of obedience 
to outward law will be formed, and this obedience will 
be yielded of course, and without anger or regret. 
These cases are only put by way of illustration, to 
show how the child may be learned that habit of self- 
denial which lies at the foundation of all moral and 
religious culture. The same practice may be applied 
to every and all acts of infancy which the parent 
knows the child ought not to do. 

To carry out such a system of government requires 
gentleness and firmness on the part of the parent. 
When an effort is once commenced to enforce obe- 
dience, it should never be given up, cost what time 
and pain it may to parent or child. If the child, 
after a struggle, prevails, and succeeds in gratifying 
itself, it will be more difficult next time to subdue it. 
Than to fail, it is much better not to begin. Failure 
injures the moral training of the child — develops in it 
self-will, resistance, anger, and, in the end, hate. Un- 
subdued, the child remembers only the pains of the 
conflict, and hate toward the cause of it is the emotion 
which is developed in its little bosom. Children who 
are half-governed — governed just enough to develop 
bad feelings, instead of being subdued to the gen- 
tleness consequent on obedience — will become bad- 
tempered, vindictive, full of hate toward parents and 
all exercising authority over them ; but if they are left 
to follow the cravings and teachings of nature, their 
bad passions and feelings will remain dormant, while 



62 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

by the other process they are developed, and will 
gather strength and energy, until the child becomes 
almost a fiend, and reason then will, when matured, 
never be able to obtain the mastery over it. But, 
while firmness characterizes every act of govern- 
ment over the child, gentleness, not harshness or 
anger, should shine out in the countenance of the 
parent. The child should feel that anger has no in- 
fluence in the effort to constrain its conduct and ac- 
tions ; that kindness and love are burning in the 
heart, while decision sits upon the brow and beams 
forth from the eye. Harshness should be avoided as 
well as cruelty. Punishment, as it is usually under- 
stood, will seldom be necessary, if the system of gov- 
erning is begun early enough. Let the more time be 
devoted in enforcing obedience. Decision will bring 
this about. The child will yield if it sees determina- 
tion in the parental look. The child will discover 
this in the tones of the voice, in the look of the eye, 
in the cast of the countenance, and will yield, when 
under other circumstances it would not. 

Some undertake to govern by playfulness, by smiles, 
by sugar-plums ; but this is no government at all. Gov- 
ernment is authority, force, something awful, not mere 
sport and pastime. Reverence should be the emotion 
developed in the bosom of the child in view of one who 
governs ; authority should appear in his eyes clothed 
with something grand and awful and mysterious and 
sacred. A child who has been guided by mere gen- 
tleness and playfulness and rewards, may be gentle 
and loving, but it will not feel reverence for any one ; 
and the child who does not fear and reverence his 
father on earth, will hardly ever fear and reverence his 



GOVERNMENT. 63 



Father in heaven. While the father is the represent- 
ative of authority and becomes an object of reverence, 
the mother is the embodiment of kindness and gentle- 
ness, and becomes the object of love. Thus the char- 
acter of both will become impressed upon the child ; 
the emotions of both reverence and love will be de- 
veloped in it, and its character will be marked by firm- 
ness and gentleness. 

There is a great, a criminal neglect on the part of 
parents in this respect. Children are allowed — nay, are 
stimulated — to obey nature rather than an outward law. 
Their whims are indulged, their appetites gratified, 
and their passions allowed to break forth in fearful 
ebullitions. No restraint is brought to bear upon their 
development; and hence, their spiritual powers unde- 
veloped, and their animal propensities strengthened, 
they enter upon life without habits of self-control 
having been formed. They give way to animal indul- 
gences, live a mere animal life, and practice the vices 
incident to such a life, as our natural appetites and pas- 
sions tend to run to excess, and thus become self- 
destructive in their action. 

This exercise of authority should be constantly car- 
ried on until the age of emancipation arrives. The 
parent should see that the child does what it ought to 
do, and does not do that which it ought not to do. 
This is the rule to be inflexibly followed, and with un- 
yielding firmness. If the child wishes to go where it 
should not, or do what it should not, the parent must 
not only prohibit, he must command and enforce his 
command, otherwise he is guilty of being an accom- 
plice in the misdeeds of his child. And yet how many 
parents allow their children to go where they know they 



64 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

ought not to go, and do what they know they ought 
not to do? How often are children allowed to be away 
from the parental home, away from family restraints 
and influences, their parents know not where? Is this 
as it should be? Are such parents living up to the 
calls of duty? The truth in such cases generally is 
that the children govern, instead of being governed; 
they go where they choose, do what they choose, while 
their weak miserable parents are at home dreading the 
fearful consequences that must necessarily ensue from 
such a course of life, originating in their neglect. 
There is no time that the child should not obey until 
it is emancipated from the family. The parents should 
watch over its conduct, and exercise their authority 
whenever the child goes astray ; there is no other 
method of saving it from the fatal consequences attend- 
ant upon wrong doing and wrong living. This ani- 
mal nature must be subdued ; habits of self-denial and 
of ready obedience to outward law and authority must 
be formed ; and then, when reason is matured, the child 
will be guided by it into the full development of its 
spiritual life, which is the end and aim and crowning 
glory of humanity. 

The question may be asked whether corporal pun- 
ishment should in any case be resorted to? I say un- 
hesitatingly yes. God punishes for wrong doing, for 
disobedience to His commands, and shall man assume 
to be wiser in his government than God is in His ? The 
duty is to make the child do right, avoid wrong, and 
this duty must be performed, however painful it may 
be ; and if words will not bring the child to obedience, 
then some other method must be resorted to. And what 
other than coercion is there when moral suasion has 



GOVERNMENT. 65 



failed? Besides, the body is the seat of those appe- 
tites and cravings which lead the young astray ; pleas- 
ure is the thing sought after by the animal man : hence 
pain inflicted upon the body is calculated to dissuade 
the animal man from gratifying his natural, his ani- 
mal wants. Animals are broken and subdued by 
such a system of discipline ; the elephant and dog 
and horse are, by the infliction of bodily pain and the 
exercise of authority, made to deny self and act in 
obedience to a law laid down by another. The child, 
ere reason is developed, is an animal, and can only 
be governed as such — can only be made to obey and 
follow like an animal that law, which its reason will 
by and by discover to be right and best adapted to de- 
velop its whole being and secure its highest happiness. 
If, however, the child is early governed, its appetites 
and its will early subdued, little or no corporal punish- 
ment will be required. Real punishment is required 
only in those cases where government has for a time 
been neglected ; then, punishment may be necessary to 
hold in check appetites and passions which have been 
allowed to acquire strength and power over the will by 
indulgence. It is painful to punish those we love ; yet 
how much more painful, how agonizing to stand beside 
the dying pillow and to bury the bloated body of a 
child who has run a career of vice and crime ! Let 
parents ponder and weigh well the two alternatives and 
deliberately choose between them. In the performance 
of duty there is always hope ; in its neglect there is 
always danger. 

It is said by some that children should not be gov- 
erned, that they should be left free to form their own 

5 



66 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

habits and opinions. But it must be seen that such a 
theory of human culture is all wrong ; that, left to 
themselves, they grow up animals, and not spiritual 
beings ; live the animal life, seeking the gratification of 
their bodily or animal wants, instead of living a spir- 
itual life and seeking only the satisfaction of their 
spiritual wants. A theory of education, therefore, 
which leaves the child to itself, to follow the leadings 
of nature, must be all wrong and productive of the 
most disastrous consequences. It is the spiritual in 
man which demands culture and development, requires 
to be nurtured and strengthened, so that the law which 
the reason may ultimately approve, shall become the 
law of life, and, holding in check the animal powers, 
shall subject them and the whole being to the law of 
reason, to the law of the spirit, which is none other 
than the law of God. 



TEACHING SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 67 



CHAPTER IX. 

TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 

Thus far I have only considered government as a 
mere outward force, brought to bear on the child and 
constrain it to act as it ought to act ; but the child is 
endowed with reason and intellect, which, when de- 
veloped and matured, must become the guide and law 
of its life. The child must be taught those facts and 
principles and truths by which its life is to be shaped 
and molded. When intellect and reason have become 
sufficiently developed, the child becomes a free, re- 
sponsible actor — one who is to be its own teacher and 
governor, and to form its own moral judgments, its own 
laws of right and wrong. This hour comes to every 
matured human being sooner or later. Each learns to 
know the right and the wrong, the thing which ought 
to be done and the thing which ought not to be done. 
But before the child is capable of thus perceiving the 
correctness of its moral judgments, it must be taught 
these laws, so that when it comes to maturity there 
will remain to it only the labor of perceiving the truth 
of the opinions and moral judgments which it has al- 
ready been taught, and by which its inward life has 
been stimulated into action, and is already being 
shaped into that image which it ought to carry home 
to its God in heaven, if it is there to find fit compan- 
ionship and a happiness which surpasses all the pow- 
ers of the understanding. 



68 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.. 

To secure the child's happiness, to protect it against 
the cravings and despotism of its animal life, the spir- 
itual powers must be developed, strengthened, and 
matured. The spiritual must control the animal, if 
the child is to become a perfected being, shaped in the 
image of its Maker, finding within itself the power 
and the law to subdue its animal life and bring it into 
sweet subjection to that life within, lived by faith in 
God. This moral nature, these spiritual powers, this 
inward and higher life, can only be developed by the 
application of appropriate means, and these means are 
the truths which the human mind has received from 
revelation, and which it is required to reveal to other 
minds destitute of the rich possession. The animal 
life is developed by contact with the outward, material 
world through the instrumentality of the senses. By 
sensation is the animal life begun and carried on, while 
the understanding, in studying these sensations, -per- 
ceives the nature and causes of them ; and out of these 
perceptions it constructs systems of science, which in- 
clude all the phenomena of sensation and perception. 
But the spirit in humanity can not be roused into life 
by any such agency. It is only by the reception of 
moral truth — of the idea of God, and of the true rela- 
tion which humanity sustains to Him and to itself. 
These truths and facts are su-persensual — they are 
spiritual, and can be received only by revelation. 
The parent becomes the revealer and teacher of these 
facts and truths to the mind of his child. These facts 
and truths were originally revealed by God to man, 
and by man have been revealed to man through the 
generations which have lived and died. 

But it will be seen that this teaching regards the 



TEACHING SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 69 

reason by which it is comprehended ; but, in order to 
study these facts and truths, to comprehend them, the 
intellect, or knowing faculty, must be developed and 
cultivated. These various powers of the intellect are 
developed and strengthened by exercise and practice. 
Hence education becomes a matter of duty, a subject 
of the deepest moment to the spiritual as well as the ani- 
mal life of the individual. We can not fully apprehend 
spiritual facts and truths, unless the intellect, which is 
to study and know them, is properly cultivated. The 
cultivation of the intellect is as important to our spir- 
itual knowledge and life as the cultivation of the un- 
derstanding is to our knowledge of material facts and 
truths, and the perfection of our animal life. Both are 
to be cultivated as essential means to the perfection of 
our spiritual life — that life which is developed inde- 
pendent of the material body, and which will continue 
to live when this body shall have again mingled with 
the common earth. Education is therefore a moral 
duty resting upon every parent to whom God has 
given the custody of immortal souls. It is not my de- 
sign to dwell upon mere intellectual culture. I as- 
sume that every parent understands and faithfully 
discharges that important duty toward his children. 

The main object of our present study is to ascertain 
how a human spirit is to be developed, enabled to ap- 
prehend God and His laws, and man's relation to Him. 
The object, the work in hand is to call into activity, to 
wake up the spiritual life in a human soul, and give to it 
that culture and vigor which will enable it to bring the 
animal nature under subjection to the spiritual life. 
In this study two things are to be regarded, to be kept 
constantly in view, in the discussion which follows. 



70 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

The first matter to be done is to reveal or teach the facts 
and truths by a faith in which the spiritual powers are 
excited into action, and the spiritual life may be 
initiated; the second matter relates to the mode, 
manner, or method in which these facts and truths 
ought to be revealed and taught to the infant and 
youthful mind. The object of all teaching should be 
the development of the moral, religious, spiritual 
powers in humanity, and the education of them up to 
that spiritual life which is the end of all life. Method 
looks to the end to be obtained ; teaching, the means 
by which that end can alone be secured ; the one 
looks to spiritual culture, the other to the truths and 
facts by which that culture alone can be effected ; the 
one is the Christian life, the other the means of work- 
ing out that life. I shall first proceed to discuss the 
facts and truths which must be revealed and taught to 
the infant mind in order to effect its spiritual develop- 
ment and culture, and the order in which these facts and 
truths must be revealed, if they are to have their legiti- 
mate effect in forcing into activity those powers and ca- 
pacities which are the foundation of the spiritual life, in 
the activity of which that higher life consists. The 
other branch of the inquiry — the method or mode — will 
come up for consideration in a subsequent chapter, and 
after the first branch has been thoroughly exhausted. 
The object of this teaching is, then, moral or relig- 
ious culture — the developing in the child those moral 
or spiritual or religious powers, capacities, or suscep- 
tibilities, upon the exercise of which the spiritual life 
depends. The moral consciousness must be brought 
into exercise, the conscience be roused to action. 
The first fact in the history of the spiritual life is to 



TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 7 1 

develop those feelings of misery or happiness follow- 
ing certain actions. The person that does right feels 
happy ; the person that does wrong feels miserable, 
unhappy. These feelings lie at the foundation of all 
spiritual life, and are our strongest protection against 
wrong-doing. God has made us to be happy in the 
performance of duty, and unhappy when we fail to do 
it or do the reverse. The development of these ele- 
mental and fundamental feelings in the spiritual life 
depend upon the fact that the mind recognizes a dif- 
ference in actions ; that there are some actions which 
ought to be done, and others which ought not to be 
done. As soon as this distinction is admitted by the 
intellect these feelings are developed, and are neces- 
sarily developed ; for they arise in the soul independ- 
ent of the will, as much as does the feeling of pain 
on the application of fire to the body. 

Such being the psychological fact, it is apparent 
that this distinction of acts into right and wrong, into 
acts to be done and acts not to be done, is the first 
impression which can and ought to be made on the 
infant mind ; and this impression can be made before 
the child is capable of apprehending the ground of 
the distinction. To the infant the parent is God and 
lawgiver. What he orders to be done is right, and 
what, he forbids to be done is wrong ; while the par- 
ent's approval or disapproval is the test of the fact 
whether actions are right or wrong. This impression 
is deepened by the use of punishment in some of its 
many forms ; all having one object in view, the con- 
viction in the mind of the child that it has done what 
it ought not to do, because its parent, who loves it so 
much, is angry, is pained, and inflicts pain on the child 



72 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

for the doing of the act it ought not to have done, 
while the smile of joy and the outgushings of love fol- 
low the doing of the act which the child ought to do. 
It is not enough to command and enforce parental 
laws and orders ; this savors of despotism, and in no 
wise contributes to moral culture. The animal may- 
be so governed ; but the spiritual being can only be 
trained to go in the w r ay it should go. There must be 
moral culture, the education and development of the 
moral powers. And this can only be done by impress- 
ing on the infant mind that there is a wide distinction 
in its acts ; that it is bad for doing some things and 
good for doing others ; that it merits its parent's blame 
for some acts and praise for others. To create this 
impression is not the work of a day; but must be 
carried on through the whole period of childhood and 
youth. The distinction should be kept up in reference 
to all actions ; the child should become permanently 
impressed with the idea that all its acts possess a 
moral character ; that there are no indifferent acts 
which can escape this principle. While the child is 
made to do right, it must understand that the requisi- 
tion is made because it ought to be made, not because 
the parent simply wills it so. Even recreation should 
come within the grasp of this distinction ; dancing 
may be proper, as a means of exercise to one con- 
demned to a sedentary life, since physical exercise is 
necessary to bodily health, and bodily health is neces- 
sary to a successful culture of the spiritual powers and 
life. In this way the conscience of the child will 
be brought into exercise, its power to restrain be felt, 
before the child is capable of understanding the true 
ground of this distinction in actions. To it the parent 



TEACHING SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 73 

is the standard of right and wrong, and it learns to 
reverence him as the lawgiver and revealer. 

In connection with this impression through which 
the conscience is developed, the emotional nature 
should be brought into exercise. The child should 
learn to love. This emotion is produced by the 
exhibition of the proper object. In the affectionate 
kindness of the parent is found a fit cause to waken 
love, to develop "that emotion which is the final result 
of right living. Education which is not accompanied 
with a development of the emotional nature will al- 
ways fail to attain the highest end of all education — 
the moral perfection of a human spirit. In this way 
the parent is presented to the child as the ground of 
right and the source of goodness — two characters cal- 
culated to wake up in it the feelings of reverence and 
the emotion of love. The child thus sees that the 
law, however unpleasant, originates in goodness, in 
love ; and hence it can never become a despotism to its 
mind, never become hateful, but always appear as 
embodied in the deepest love and the profoundest 
sympathy. Great care should be taken to avoid de- 
veloping the emotion of hate in reference to the parent 
or to his commands. The firmness of the parent 
should be warmed with the feelings of affection. His 
laws should appear to the child to originate in love — 
in a single regard for the right, and the happiness of 
the child. Acting on this principle, the parent will be 
loved, and his teachings command the conscience and 
stimulate the affections. 

The next impression to be made, the next truth to 
be taught, is the great fact of the existence of a God — 
a fact which lies at the foundation of all morality, of 



74 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

all religion, of all moral culture. This is the ultimate 
fact — a fact behind and beyond which it is impossible 
for the human mind to go. The atheist stops in the 
material world as his ultimate fact, beyond which he 
can not go ; but he who believes in human conscious- 
ness and a spiritual life in humanity must go behind 
the material world to that other fact, by the word of 
which it is that this material world exists. But God 
is not a mere fact ; He is an intelligent being, who not 
only created, but governs His universe. The idea of 
an apathetic God is not the Christian idea of Him — is 
not the character given to Him in the Christian scrip- 
tures. He is there represented as not only having 
created all things, but as constantly interested in all 
the affairs thereof — in all the actions of the child as 
well as of the man ; as concerning Himself in the 
smallest as well as in the largest interests of humanity ; 
as aiding man to discover the true and do the right ; 
as listening to the cry of human anguish, and aiding 
the wounded spirit in its feeble efforts to recover itself 
from the effects of sin. He is represented as co- 
working with all honest and earnest minds in that life- 
work — the recovery of a spirit, gone astray in sin and 
error, back again to that clear perception of the true, 
and the regaining of that ability of doing right which 
belongs to the human soul in its normal state. God 
.is said to be touched with the feelings of our infirmi- 
ties ; nor could we go unto Him, when borne down 
with disappointments and adversities, unless we be- 
lieved not only that He is, but that He is also the re- 
warder of those who diligently seek Him. It is this 
fact that God will hear and aid, which alone can 
justify and encourage the spirit, crushed under the 



TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 75 

consciousness of its own sins and weaknesses, to go to 
Him for help and succor in the day of its temptation, 
in the hour of its humiliation, with the assurance that, 
God helping, it may put off these habits of sin, get 
rid of these impure thoughts and wandering desires, 
• and grow up into that spiritual life of love and purity 
which Christianity holds up as a possibility for the 
earnest and true worker according to the divine law. 
There are great errors, even among religious people, 
on this subject. I have heard it said, even in the pul- 
pit, that God could not be affected with our prayers ; 
that His purposes could not be changed by our inter- 
cessions. This is not a true representation of the 
character of God. His purpose is to save those who 
do seek Him — to aid those who in their distress cry 
unto Him. This is His plan for the recovery of fallen 
humanity — a plan devised to meet our wants and our 
true condition as fallen beings. We know God but 
in Christ. "He that has known me," says Christ, 
" has known the Father." God is in Christ reconcil- 
ing humanity unto Himself; and where can we find a 
more earnest and loving manifestation toward man- 
kind — toward man as an outcast from God, a wanderer 
from His laws and His ways, a despiser of His com- 
mands—than is seen in the life and character of Christ? 
He. came into this world in search of the lost — to bring 
back the wanderer to God, and restore to purity and 
happiness a debased and suffering humanity. " God 
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son to come into this world, that whosoever might 
believe on Him should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life." Surely, God is not indifferent to the wants 
of humanity, but, on the contrary, is working with it 



76 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

to recover it back from the ruin in which it is in- 
volved. 

It is this idea of God which even a child is able to 
apprehend, while to his mind a being symbolizing 
only power would be incomprehensible. The great 
fact should be impressed upon the infant mind in such 
a way that it may in some faint degree apprehend its 
truth. To accomplish this revelation, various modes 
of teaching must be resorted to ; it is not an outward 
form, but a thought, an idea, which is to be revealed 
and taught. The material world can not reveal to us His 
nature and His character ; it may symbolize His power. 

The child is first to become acquainted with its 
earthly parents ; in them it sees lawgivers, governors, 
the givers of every good gift, and the authors of all 
its little happiness. They represent to it all that is 
great, wise, and good; in them it sees beings who 
command its reverence and its love. But these are 
only its father and mother upon earth. It has another 
and greater father — a Father in heaven ; and it should 
be taught to lift its thoughts and affections up from this 
father on earth to its greater Father in heaven, from 
whom come, indeed, not only its earthly parents, but 
all earthly good. It is thus through a knowledge of 
its earthly parents that the child is to be led to the idea 
of its Father in heaven, of God, a spirit. It is this 
Father in heaven who causes the earth to put on her 
beautiful livery of green, who clothes it with robes of 
living flowers, and covers its fields with the golden 
harvests of autumn. Its earthly father has told it of a 
right and a wrong, of things which it should do and 
which it should not do, and now it learns that its 
earthly parent was only telling it of the laws and com- 



TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 77 

mands of this heavenly Father, who is the maker of 
all things and the governor of all men. It has been 
clothed and fed and nurtured by its earthly father ; it 
now learns that all these blessings come from its greater 
Father in heaven, and that while its earthly parents 
were watching over it with so much care, and pouring 
out upon it such rich treasuresof affection, it was all done 
because this greater Father in heaven told them to do 
it. In this way the child may be led to form the idea 
of an unseen Father — a being whom its eye hath not 
seen nor its ear heard, but yet not less a fact than the 
existence of the parents it does see and hear and know. 

Next to the fact that He is, comes the character that 
He possesses, the attributes with which He is endowed. 
His power may be symbolized in the creation of the 
material world. The child's attention need but be 
called to such an effect as an evidence that the Being 
who could speak all this into existence, must be pos- 
sessed of unlimited power. His goodness may be sym- 
bolized in the wonderful adaptation of the earth, and 
the air, and the light, for the happiness of His intelli- 
gent creatures. He must love those on whom He thus 
pours forth His blessings with such an unwithdrawing 
hand. His holiness may be exhibited in the fact that 
He declares what is right and wrong ; what His intel- 
ligent creature must and must not do, and that in doing 
what He commands, God is pleased, but that He is 
ever angry with him who does evil. The child should 
be made to feel the truth that God is pleased when it 
does right, and displeased when it does wrong. In 
the fact that its earthly father punishes it when it does 
wrong, it may learn that God also is angry with the 
bad, with the wicked, with those who obey not His 



78 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

commands. Its father on earth smiled upon it in love 
when it did right and was obedient to his commands, 
until its little heart is all aglow with love and joy ; and 
it now learns that a Father in heaven will smile upon 
it and fill its little life with blessedness, and make it 
everlastingly happy in His home in the heavens, if it 
obeys His commands, and shapes its life by His law, 
and walks in all the wa}^s of truth and right. 

The idea of God is thus to be revealed to the mind 
of the child, through a knowledge of his father on 
earth ; its mind is to be led upward to the thought, the 
idea of a Father in heaver^. It is only under this idea 
of a father that even the matured mind can apprehend 
God in some faint degree ; but to the child, to whose 
mind the thought of God is presented, God becomes 
indeed a Father in a higher sense than an earthly 
father — a Father who watches over its little life, im- 
parts all its joy, assuages all its sorrows, and will in the 
end bring it home to Himself in heaven, where dwells 
perpetual light and an unalloyed happiness. 

As the mind and reason of the child are developed 
and gain strength to grasp higher truths, it may be 
taught through the history and life of Christ a yet 
higher idea of the character of its Father in heaven. 
In that life it may see the model life of humanity — that 
form of life to which all should aim, though none may 
attain to the reality. In this manifestation of the union 
of the divine with the human, it may be taught not 
only what its own life ought to be, but also the deep 
interest which its Father in heaven takes in its welfare 
and happiness. Christ becomes its elder brother, sent 
by his unseen Father to educate its mind and spirit 
into all truth, and guide its steps in the way that leads 



TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 79 

to its final home with Christ and God in heaven. With 
a settled and firm belief in such an idea of God and 
humanity, it will have power to mold and shape its life 
into conformity with that divine image of a perfected 
humanity exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ. 

This idea of God is not addressed to the understand- 
ing, through sensation, but to the spirit, through the 
reason. The reason is the faculty by which we appre- 
hend spiritual truths — ideas which have no material ob- 
jective existence, like matter. It is therefore not without 
repeated efforts that the mind of the child can be made 
to apprehend facts which lie beyond the cognizance of 
the senses. We are compelled, through symbols and 
comparisons and earthly relations, to suggest to the 
mind, to the reason that unseen fact, those ideal truths — 
facts and truths which become realities to the mind 
only when they have become the object of faith, for 
the spiritual life can only be developed by faith in the 
unseen. The life we live is a life lived by faith in 
God. These efforts, therefore, to impress the idea of 
God upon the infant mind, must be repeated upon all 
occasions ; line upon line and precept upon precept 
must be the law of this education. The child must be 
led to see God in everything, to recognize His presence 
and the power of His love in all acts and thoughts. 
It should be taught to see in its daily life, in the food 
it eats, the clothes it wears, the happiness it experiences, 
the agency of its heavenly Father. It should feel that 
it is through His protecting power that it lies down 
nightly to sweet repose, and wakes refreshed each 
morning to the glories of the sunshine and to new joys. 
The child should be impressed, too, with the thought 
that the eye of God is ever upon him ; that He sees 



SO CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

when no other eye can see, all its bad and wicked acts 
and thoughts, and writes them down against it in that 
mighty volume, the book of His remembrance ; and 
that hereafter a time shall come when it shall read out 
of that volume the record of its most secret thoughts 
and hidden acts — thoughts and acts which give it pain 
now to recall to memory. This instruction, these im- 
pressions can be given by hints, by suggestions, by a 
single word, and often even by a look. It is not nec- 
essary that it should be formal : it is better that it 
should be given as comments upon the daily acts of its 
little life ; that it should come to this knowledge and 
to these ideas as the boy in a store learns arithmetic 
and the power of numbers by calculating the amount 
of his daily purchases and sales. Such moral teaching 
results in moral culture ; it brings into exercise the 
moral powers and susceptibilities of the spirit, and 
daily widens and deepens the flow of that spiritual 
life which knows no end. In this way the idea of 
God will become a living reality in the life of the child, 
as real to it as the sunshine and the rain, as seed-time 
and harvest. 

Great caution should be employed, in imparting this 
idea of God, to avoid a wrong impression upon the in- 
fant mind. The object of this teaching is twofold : 
First, to reveal the fact of God's existence to the infant 
mind ; second, by faith in this fact, to excite in the 
spirit the emotions of reverence and love toward this 
great Being. The child should never feel rising in 
his spirit the emotion of fear at the mention of the 
name of its heavenly Father ; fear and love are in- 
compatible emotions ; hate keeps company with fear, 
and love with reverence. We may hate whom we 



TEACHING SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 8l 

fear and love whom we reverence, but never the re- 
verse. Perfect love casteth out fear. The object, then , 
to be aimed at, is to call up in the child love toward 
God, whenever the thought of Him comes across the 
mind. When, however, God is represented to the 
child under the idea of Almighty Power, put forth 
for the destruction of the wicked, fear, not love — ter- 
ror, not reverence — is excited in the mind ; and the 
thought of God becomes painful to the child, because 
the feelings of fear and terror are always painful ; 
and, to avoid this pain, the child will labor to shut out 
from its mind all thought of God. The truth that God 
is almighty, and that He will visit upon the wicked 
punishment for their wickedness, has its application. 
The terrors of the Almighty may be pressed upon the 
thoughtless, to bring them to reflect upon their course 
of life ; but it is only the love of God which can 
bring them to repentance. A knowledge of God will 
produce one of two results upon every spirit : it will 
call up in the mind the emotions of fear and of hate, 
or of love and reverence ; and, as the one result or the 
other is produced, that spirit will be happy or misera- 
ble, since love is happiness and hate is misery. Nor 
can any human soul escape the one or the other of 
these results ; it must love God and be happy, or it will 
hate Him and be miserable. Such was Milton's con- 
ception of spiritual existences — the angels, which kept 
their first estate, are represented as all aglow with the 
emotion of love; those who fell, as being all on fire 
with the burning emotion of hate ; love leading the 
one to worship and happiness, hate the other to re- 
venge and misery : 
6 



82 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

11 This must be our task 
In Heaven, this our delight; how wearisome 
Eternity so spent, in worship paid 
To whom vje Jiate I 

And by proof we feel 
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven, 
And with perpetual inroads to alarm, 
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne; 
Which, if not victory, is yet reve7ige" 

Those thoughts which work out in the life love to 
God and man, are the true thoughts, and that life is 
the perfected life of humanity. 

The whole truth need not be presented to the infant 
mind at first. It must be nurtured on the milk of the . 
Word ; it must be taught only those simple and practi- 
cal truths which take direct hold upon the development 
of its little life. These truths present God as the 
Father of humanity, laboring for its recovery to a 
spiritual life and its natural happiness, as happiness is 
the normal condition of a spirit ; while misery is the 
result of its having departed from the law of its crea- 
tion, and thus introduced discord and misery into the 
workings of the spiritual life. The fearful truth, that 
to the workers of iniquity God is a consuming fire, is 
well calculated for matured minds immersed in the 
gross, material interests of life, and laboring solely 
to lay up treasures on earth, forgetful of that richer 
treasure to be laid up in heaven. Terror may startle 
such minds, and rouse them up to thoughts of heaven 
and hell, of God and eternity. It may startle, like 
the cry of fire in the ear of one sleeping quietly, while 
the flames of his dwelling are rapidly gathering around 
his bed ; but other and different thoughts must be 
cast into the minds of these startled sleepers, if they 



TEACHING— SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 83 

are to be brought to repentance and a new life. The 
infant mind does not need to be startled ; it is awake, 
it is alive. It is only the matured mind, which, im- 
mersed in material cares, becomes dead in trespasses 
and sins. To awake such to a consciousness of their 
perilous condition, it may be necessary to turn upon 
them the whole force of the lightning and thunders of 
Sinai. But this is not that truth which in the mind 
shall become the germ of a new and spiritual life ; not 
that leaven which, when once taken into the soul, shall 
leaven the whole man ; not that water, of which, if one 
drink, it shall be in him a fountain of water gushing 
up into everlasting life ; not that bread, of which, if 
one eat, it shall become in him the germ of a per- 
petual nourishment, so that one shall hunger no more 
forever. It is by faith in God as our Father, caring 
for His children, and aiding them in shaping their 
lives according to His laws, that we daily become 
more and more conformed in our minds to that per- 
fect image which He has revealed in the person of 
His Son. Many fatal mistakes are made, and many 
a soul is driven away from a holy and spiritual life, 
by a disregard of this distinction in those into whose 
hands has fallen the culture of infant minds. Never 
make your child afraid of God, lest it come to hate 
Him ; but ever labor to present to the infant mind 
such an idea of God as will call out the emotions of 
love, and lead to reverence. Then will its little life 
culminate in that state described by Wadsworth : 

" Rapt into still communion that transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power 
That made him; it was blessedness and love." 



84 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

As the mind acquires strength, and the circle of 
thought begins to enlarge, another impression should 
be made upon it in such a way as to become an un- 
eradicable conviction, an ever-present reality. This 
fact is, that the child, as it does things which it knows 
it ought not to do, and leaves undone things which it 
knows it ought to do, is therefore a sinner. This 
truth can not be taught dogmatically. It will do little 
or no good to tell the child that it is a sinner ; it must 
be made conscious of that terrible fact. This can only 
be done by calling its attention to those wrong acts of 
which it is every day guilty, pointing out wherein the 
same are wrong, and showing it that this character of 
the act was known to it ; that it had been told that it 
was wrong to do it, and hence did it knowing that it 
ought not to have done it. These acts are of constant 
occurrence with children. They know 7 that they ought 
to obey their parents, to love their little brothers and 
sisters, and never do what their parents tell them is 
wrong. It is by calling the attention of the child to 
these relations of all its acts that it will feel the con- 
sciousness of doing wrong, of doing what it knew it 
ought not to have done, or omitting to do what it ought 
to have done. If it is angry, disobeys its parents, 
breaks into a pet against its little playthings, or strikes 
its little brother or sister, it should be told that this is 
naughty, bad, wicked, sinful, and that it had been so 
told repeatedly. No wrong act should be overlooked 
by the parent without calling the child's attention to 
the fact that the act is wrong, wicked, sinful. In this 
way the habit of introverted thought, of self-reflection, 
of self-examination, is cultivated, and the child be- 
comes conscious of the awful fact that it is bad, 



TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 85 

wicked — a sinner. Wrong acts, even if giving evi- 
dence of cleverness or partaking of the laughable, 
should never be overlooked or go unrebuked. The 
child soon loses the consciousness of the wrong in the 
smile or applause of its parents or others. Indeed, it 
will become unconscious of the wrong, not believing 
that to be so which its parents smile at as smart, 
and its friends as witty and clever. Many parents 
thus lose sight of the sin in admiration of the clever- 
ness, and the child comes to think that it has done a 
praiseworthy, instead of a blameworthy deed. Such 
teaching perverts the moral judgments of the child, 
lays its conscience to sleep, and stimulates the pas- 
sion of vanity, instead of rousing up the conscious- 
ness of guilt, thus leading directly to the indulgence 
of pride, instead of that humility which becomes an 
erring humanity. Parents often commit fearful mis- 
takes in this respect, and thus jeopardize the present 
and future happiness of their children. 

In connection with this fact should be taught the 
necessity for sorrow, repentance for wrong-doing. 
The child should see that its sin, its wrong act, has 
pained the hearts of its parents, has grieved those who 
are so kind, loving, and provident of its happiness; 
and from its earthly parents its thoughts should be 
carried up to that Father in heaven who is also pained 
and grieved when His children do wrong, will be 
angry with them, unless they are sorry for the sin, 
and promise in sincerity of heart to avoid the repeti- 
tion of the wrong act. The child should have the 
truth and character of its conduct so presented to its 
mind that it will also feel pained and grieved at the bad 
act it has been guilty of. This impression can be 



86 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

made only by a constant repetition of the act of self- 
consciousness, produced by the parents' reasoning upon 
the wrong act as the child ought to reason upon it. 
In infancy and early youth, the parents must wake up 
self-consciousness in the mind of the child, by leading 
it through that process by which the mature mind ar- 
rives at the consciousness of its own sins. This is a 
process the child will not go through of itself, though 
its mind will follow and comprehend it when presented 
to it by the parent or teacher. To reason upon the 
morality, the rectitude of our own acts, is ever an un- 
pleasant and painful task ; hence children and youth 
will avoid the process, unless it is pressed upon their 
attention — unless they are forced to reflect. Hence it 
is of the deepest moment that parents and teachers 
should constantly call the attention of the child to the 
moral character of its acts, and compel it to look the 
turpitude of them directly in the face. In that way 
only will the child become conscious of its own crim- 
inality and demerit. The child may in this way be 
led to form the habit of looking at its own acts, of 
testing them by the law of everlasting rectitude, con- 
demning or approving them, as they appear in har- 
mony or conflict with this inflexible law. 

In the repetition of wrong acts, even after it has 
formed resolutions not to repeat them, the child may 
be taught the depravity of its nature ; the fact that its 
system has received such a shock, that its harmony 
has been so disturbed, that it will continue to do acts 
which it would not have done, and therefore that its 
recovery from this condition is beyond its own unaided 
ability. But the truth that God, by His spirit, aids the 
sincere penitent and earnest seeker to do the right, 



TEACHING— SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 87 

may now be presented as a ground of hope that God 
loves and helps and saves the penitent and true seeker, 
though he may continue to go astray. If possible, 
the child should be made to feel its own weakness, 
and therefore to look up to God, its Father in heaven, 
for that aid which is essential to the successful termina- 
tion of the spiritual life. This impression may be 
made by calling the child's attention to the fact that it 
repeats day by day the same wrong, though it prom- 
ised itself that it would not, and hence that it must go 
to its Father in heaven for that aid of His spirit which 
He has promised to all those who earnestly and sin- 
cerely call upon Him. This idea of human dependence 
upon divine aid for its recovery should be deeply im- 
pressed upon the mind. It will remove all ground for 
pride and self-esteem, and lead the mind to that state 
of humility which is the condition of all spiritual pro- 
gress. Humility, springing from a consciousness of 
our weakness, of our inability to realize in life our own 
idea of what it ought to be, leads us to look to God 
for His co-operation, and stimulates us to more efficient 
efforts, since it is God working in and with us to our 
own purification and ultimate recovery. 

These facts and truths are the elements of the spir- 
itual life, the material out of which that life is wrought. 
The idea of God, of His law r , of our sinfulness, our 
failure to obey, of Christ the reconciler, of the prom- 
ised divine aid, and of our duty to strive to make the 
life conformed to the divine law, constitute the true 
grounds upon which each must build his spiritual edi- 
fice. Herein lie the thoughts upon which all practical 
morality and religion depend. It is true that there 
are many other truths well calculated to enlarge our 



88 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

ideas of God, of duty, and of life; but these are yet 
the essential ones, without a firm faith in which there 
can be no spiritual life, no spiritual progress, no re- 
ligion. The child can apprehend these, but most of 
these other and higher truths are addressed to the ma- 
tured mind, and constitute elements for thought rather 
than materials for the religious life. It is therefore 
these elementary truths that should be impressed upon 
and ground into the infant and youthful mind until 
they lie there like realities, and are recognized by it 
as distinctly as the sunshine and the rain, seed-time 
and harvest, summer and winter. 

These truths are to be taught by precept and by ex- 
ample. The daily life of the child will furnish these 
examples, and advantage must be taken of them to 
lead the youthful mind to reason upon the rectitude of 
its daily acts. Influenced by its animal nature, the 
child will be constantly repeating acts which it has 
been told are wrong, and it should be constantly re- 
minded of this fact. A single word, oftentimes a look, 
will be sufficient to call up that train of thought which 
results in self-condemnation. Is that right? Does 
God tell you to do so ? Will God be pleased with that ? 
Is that being a good child? Will your mother be 
pleased with that ? Did not I tell 3'ou that was wicked, 
bad, wrong, and that God was not pleased with children 
doing such things? Such hints as these will call up 
in the child's mind the proper train of thought, start 
it on a process of moral reasoning, and thus cultivate 
the habit of it. The habit of reasoning about the right 
and w r rong of our own acts is an unpleasant one, and 
can only be formed in the youthful mind by an influ- 
ence brought to bear upon it from without, and brought 



TEACHING — SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 89 

constantly to bear upon it. The parent and teacher 
must go repeatedly over the process, must repeatedly 
work out the moral result for the child, and thus com- 
pel it to think, to reflect, to compare ; to bring its own 
thoughts and acts to some standard or test of rectitude, 
and thus infer their moral character, whether they are 
right or wrong. This process of moral reasoning 
ought to be perpetually carried on in every mind ; we 
ought to be constantly inquiring whether what we have 
done and thought are right, and whether what we pro- 
pose to do will also be right, be what God will approve 
of, when that final trial and adjudication shall take 
place at His bar, where truth is certain to be vindicated 
and justice be done. It is to the want of this habit 
of moral reasoning that much, if not most, of the 
thoughtless mischief which so disturbs the peace of 
society, is owing. Words are spoken, acts are done, 
from which issue innumerable evils, which would never 
have been spoken or done if reflection had preceded 
them. We do not love to think; moral reasoning is 
an unpleasant process, a painful labor : hence great 
efforts are required to cultivate in the youthful mind 
this habit, which, though unpleasant and painful at 
first, in the end becomes our guiding star and the source 
of all our joys. Happiness is that glow in the spirit, 
consequent upon the consciousness of right doing. 
This thought can not be too deeply impressed upon the 
parental mind ; it should be ever present to him in all 
his intercourse and dealings; in all his instructions and 
teachings it should ever be his guide, ever the light 
by which he walks and works for the culture of those 
dear to his heart. 

Before closing this subject of religious teaching and 



90 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

culture, I will allude to the subject of active benevo- 
lence as one instrumentality in that great work. Human 
nature strongly tends to selfishness. Egotism is a re- 
sult of our animal instincts. In wealth we see the 
means of selfish gratification, and the idea of giving 
away to others this wealth becomes painful, because 
we seem to lose those mere animal pleasures which it 
might procure for us ; we suffer in expectation, not in 
reality. We therefore cling to all the present for the 
promise which it contains. The selfish man, therefore, 
is selfish to his own hurt and without experiencing any 
compensating advantage ; it is all imaginary, there is 
nothing real in it. To counteract this fearful tendency 
of our animal instincts, the child must be practiced in 
self-denial, and from self-denial arises emotions which 
are more than a compensation for it. In giving, in 
nraking others happy, in seeing them so through our 
agency, we learn to realize the deep meaning of the 
remark of our Saviour, " It is more blessed to give than 
to receive." Charity, indeed, carries in her bounteous 
hands a double blessing ; it makes happy the giver no 
less than the receiver. The practice of benevolence, of 
relieving the human suffering and want we witness, 
serves powerfully to develop our emotional nature, our 
sympathy with humanity under all of its varied mani- 
festations. We come to give away the wealth God has 
bestowed upon us with joy instead of pain ; we find 
our sweetest joy in relieving human suffering ; in the 
practice of this blessed work, selfishness has passed in 
music out of sic^ht. 

Children, then, should be taught this duty, and 
enabled to engage early in its practice. Money 
should be given them for this purpose, whenever an- 



TEACHING SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 91 

other child stands before them in want and destitution, 
in rags, and almost in nakedness. It should be en- 
couraged to give even its own food, its own dinner, 
and its own clothes to such objects of an intelligent 
charity. "It can not fail to exercise a powerful and 
happy influence upon their moral and religious cul- 
ture. Objects of benevolence should be presented to 
their minds ; the destitution and degradation of pagan 
populations should be opened up to their view, and 
the contrasts in their respective conditions be made to 
stand out distinctly before their minds, and then the 
change which would ensue if our Christian civilization 
were sent to them. So, too, the want and misery 
which lie all around us' should not be overlooked, 
should not be forgotten. The child should also be 
shown all this, and be led to contrast its wretchedness 
and misery with the superfluous abundance which it 
enjoys. Then let the child be habituated to relieve 
these wants, to see the joy that its charity produces 
in another human heart, arid it can not fail to feel 
glowing within its bosom those deep and holy emotions 
which are the blessedness of this our life. Its spir- 
itual nature will be developed under the influence of 
such habits, and the child saved from the curse of that 
selfishness which narrows all our views and dries up 
all our sympathies. 

It is plain, therefore, that parents ought not only to 
be charitable themselves, but to habituate their chil- 
dren to be so. It is only by such training, by the 
formation of such a habit, that selfishness can be 
eradicated from the human heart, and a noble sym- 
pathy with human suffering be implanted in its stead. 
Selfishness and a melting charity can not occupy the 



92 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

same human soul. The one necessarily excludes the 
other as the day excludes the night, and summer 
breezes the wintry blasts. Children reared in the en- 
joyment of material abundance are very liable to be 
hard-hearted and selfish, destitute of sympathy for 
human suffering. It is therefore of the deepest mo- 
ment that parents who have wealth should habituate 
their children to acts of charity, in order to exclude 
selfishness and excite the emotions of love and sym- 
pathy for humanity, for the happiness of others. And 
yet how many overlook this important agency in the 
education and culture of their children ! 



TEACHING — MATERIAL LIVING. ^ 



CHAPTER X. 

TEACHING — MATERIAL LIVING. 

Having laid down the grounds of the spiritual life, 
we may now turn our attention to some of those prac- 
tical questions, a clear understanding of which are es- 
sential to the successful culture of the moral being. 
Without the body, the spirit can not exist in time. 
When this earthly tabernacle falls to pieces, the earthly 
culture of the spirit is closed, and its destiny then de- 
pends upon what may happen beyond that bourne 
from which no traveler ever returns. The healthy 
action of the body is also indispensable to the activity 
of both mind and spirit. The mind and spiritual life 
are crushed out under the weight of a diseased body ; 
hence a healthy body is essential to the successful cul- 
ture of both mind and spirit. To secure a healthy 
body — a body which is in such a condition as will 
leave the mind and spirit free to work out their develop- 
ment and culture, and this with the least possible outlay 
of time — is the end and aim of all material industries 
and improvements. Agriculture, commerce, and the 
mechanic arts all aim at providing for the wants and 
comforts of this frail body of ours. Progress in ma- 
terial things is to be sought for, because by it our 
material wants are supplied by a less outlay of time 
and human labor, whereby more leisure is obtained 
for mental and moral culture. In order that the body 
may be maintained in a sound and healthy condition, 



94 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

three things are to be provided for — it must be prop- 
erly fed, clothed, and housed. But it must never 
be forgotten that neither of these are ends — only 
means to a higher end — and are therefore never to be 
sought in and for themselves. The great end is 
the perfect development and culture of the spiritual 
man, and these are to be regarded only as means in- 
dispensable to the accomplishment of that highest of 
all ends. Yet many people seek food and clothing 
and houses as though they were the chief end of life ; 
as though success in life was to be measured by the 
abundance, luxury, and show of these. We have no 
right to waste our precious time in accumulating ma- 
terial wealth for the mere sake of its possession. If 
we are blessed with more than we need for ourselves, 
God has sent us the poor, on whom we may bestow 
our superfluity to the advancement of our spiritual 
growth as well as to their material benefit. The com- 
fort and healthy condition of the body, as a means 
of spiritual culture, is the object to be secured, and 
we should look at the matter from that standpoint, 
and square our activity and conduct in conformity 
to it.' 

The first subject then is that of food. The body must 
have food or it will perish ; but its supply must be pro- 
vided on the principle, that a sound an.d healthy body 
is to be secured, not appetite to be gratified. We are 
not to eat foiUhe pleasure of eating, but for the health 
of the body. There is not much theoretical error on 
this subject, and yet practically the world is full of it. 
Thousands come to regard eating as a daily pleasure, 
to be sought after, to be provided for, by a search 
after the choicest dainties and the richest food which 



TEACHING — MATERIAL LIVING. 95 

may gratify an unnaturally developed taste, and im- 
pair, instead of strengthen, the physical system. Nor 
is this the worst. Many people prepare concentrated 
food to meet the wants of a palled appetite, and to 
stimulate, to sharpen the mere pleasure of eating. For 
this reason highly concentrated stimulants, whether 
as food or drink, are prepared and taken. Men and 
women daily eat and drink, it would seem, to destroy 
the healthy action of their bodies, rather than for the 
purpose of preserving them sound. Overeating and 
overdrinking are therefore a sin ; since they impair 
the health of the body? and thus defeat the very pur- 
pose for which drink and food were given humanity 
to subserve. This sin may be committed in two 
ways ; either by using improper food or drinks, or by 
using them to excess. Either mode is an injury to 
the body, and a wrong committed upon his health, by 
the person so indulging. It is highly important, 
therefore, that children should be rightly taught — 
taught to regard this constantly recurring necessity as 
a duty having a specific object, and not as a mere 
pleasure to be sought for, or a mere gratification to 
be indulged in and for themselves. Brutes even have, 
from instinct, a better understanding of the subject 
than many men and women, endowed with the God- 
like faculty of reason. 

Yet gross mistakes are made in practice by multi- 
tudes to whom the nurture of children is committed. 
Even the infant at the breast is overfed, in order to 
keep it quiet ; while older children are crammed with 
high-seasoned food and candies, for the purpose of 
keeping them still while mother or nurse is busy or 
friends are calling. A neglect of government is sought 



96 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

to be supplied by the sin of overfeeding. The appe- 
tite, in this way, is unnaturally stimulated, and the 
child becomes uneasy unless the diseased organs of 
taste are constantly gratified with food or drink. 
The body and its appetites become diseased by this 
overstimulation, and the child is driven on to seek 
mere animal sensations, to the ruin of his bodily ac- 
tivity and the neglect of his mental cultivation and 
spiritual nurture. There can be no mental cultivation 
and spiritual growth in that individual whose pas- 
sions and appetites are ever clamorous for gratifi- 
cation, who has no thought but for what he shall eat 
and what he shall drink, and wherewithal he shall be 
clothed. These uneasy feelings are the consequence of 
a diseased state of the organs, induced by overaction, 
by excess in eating and drinking. In the inebriate and 
the glutton we see this disease in its most revolting form. 
The excesses of parents often affect and impair the 
bodies of their offspring ; from their own diseased 
bodies, their children also come into life with diseased 
and impaired bodies, with appetites and passions un- 
naturally developed and craving for gratification. 

This habit of excessive eating and drinking is a 
fearful wrong, a plain violation of duty, a robbing of 
the thousands that starve for that which they need and 
the others do not. 

"If every just man that now pines for want, 
Had but a moderate and beseeming share 
Of that which lewdly pampered luxury 
Now heaps upon some few with vast excess, 
Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed 
In unsuperfluous even proportion, 
And she no whit incumbered with her store ; 
And then the Giver would be better thanked, 



TEACHING — MATERIAL LIVING. 97 

His praise due paid ; for swinish gluttony 
Never looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feasts, 
But with besotted, base ingratitude 
Crams and blasphemes its Feeder." 

The subject is one of deep interest, and parents 
should lay it to heart. The welfare and happiness of 
their children depend upon their conduct in this re- 
spect as well as upon their teaching. Simple, plain 
food should be provided for their children as well as 
for themselves. The food should be such as is best 
adapted to develop- and strengthen the body without 
stimulating the appetites. High-seasoned and stimu- 
lating food may not injure the old as it does the 
young ; their systems are less easily affected than is 
that of the young. Still, a plain, simple diet is best 
alike for old and young; and if employed by all, 
there would be witnessed many fewer shipwrecks of 
parental hopes, while the average length of human 
life would be increased instead of being diminished. 

The next subject to which we will address our con- 
sideration is that of dress. The object of dress is utli- 
ity, to meet, a want which God has laid upon us. The 
body, exposed to the inclemencies and accidents of 
weather and climate, could not otherwise maintain its 
healthy action. The main'object of dress is to meet 
and provide for this want of humanity. Clothing, 
therefore, should be of that quality and shape best suited 
to accomplish this object. The nature of clothing should 
be'adapted to the peculiar circumstances and climate in 
which we are placed. Climate has much to do with 
this. In warm latitudes little clothing is required, and 
that is required rather to meet another necessity, a pro 

7 



98 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

priety — the concealment of the unseemly portion of the 
body. Decency and neatness may therefore be re- 
garded in the adjustment of our apparel. The habits 
of all people have rendered this concealment a duty — 
a habit which is essential to the development of those 
feelings and sentiments of modesty and delicacy, with- 
out which there can be no refinement in taste, and no 
purity of life. On this ground, clothing is necessary, 
is a duty even for those who live in latitudes, the tem- 
perature of which might not render it a necessity. The 
decencies of life are to be cultivated as a duty, since 
without them there can be no progress in civilization 
and public morality. Decency and bodily convenience 
are then the great object of all clothing, and these two 
things should never be forgotten and overlooked. To 
meet these wants, God has abundantly supplied the 
crude materials, leaving the preparation of them to 
human ingenuity and a cultivated taste, guided by a 
due consciousness of duty in the application of the laws 
of adaptation. 

The nature and the construction of clothing must 
also be adapted to the employment and condition of 
the wearer. The miner and mechanic and farmer and 
professional man, each require a dress suited to their 
various occupations, while the dress of the two sexes 
has each its peculiar adaptation and fitness. This fit- 
ness of clothing to the occupation should never be lost 
sight of; its truth should be impressed upon every 
mind. It is a matter of duty, since the disregard of it 
involves a waste of capital, which God requires to be 
appropriated to promote the cultivation and happiness 
of his intelligent moral creation. A waste of the ac- 
cumulations of labor is always wrong — a sin ; because 



TEACHING MATERIAL LIVING. 99 

wealth is appointed of God for the benefit of His crea- 
tures, and the poor always need for their comfort and 
happiness the superfluities of the rich. 

Fitness is not, however, the only consideration to be 
regarded in dress. God has endowed us with a love 
of the beautiful, and in the development of this emo- 
tion, men and women experience a true happiness; 
since love in all its modes of development, whether it 
is a love of the beautiful or the good, is the perfected 
state of a human soul, the highest development of hu- 
manity. Love is the fulfilling of the law ; hence, when 
the soul is all aglow with this emotion, it is and must 
be happy. All of God's work in their perfect state — 
the earth with its varied beauty, and human rectitude 
and goodness — necessarily call up this emotion in the 
soul, and thus contribute to its happiness. This divine 
capacity is therefore to be cultivated in all possible 
ways. It may be done by so shaping the creations of 
human skill and ingenuity as to meet this want of our 
nature, and call its powers of love into active exercise. 
Everything around us should be made beautiful, though 
nothing can be so when its construction sins against 
the laws of fitness and propriety. There are some em- 
ployments for which fitness — adaptation — is the sole, 
consideration to be regarded ; while there are others for 
which the elements of beauty should be studied, subor- 
dinate, however, to the idea of fitness and adaptation. 

As the subject of art, dress is to be regarded as a 
means of exhibiting to the best advantage and in the 
highest perfection the beauty of the human form. The 
human being should be so presented to the eye of others 
as to call up the emotion of the beautiful, the love of 
the beautiful, instead of disgust. The outward man 



IOO CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

or woman should excite our love, and to aid this effect, 
dress should be so shaped and fitted to exhibit the 
human form and the face divine, that whenever we 
meet a human being, we m&y spontaneously be led to 
exclaim — 

" What glorious shape 
Comes this way moving; seems another morn 
Risen on mid-noon." 

A well-dressed man or woman will therefore draw 
attention to their own persons, not to their dress. 
Whenever the dress calls off attention from the person 
of the wearer to itself, there is something wrong with 
it in an aesthetic point of view ; we are led to love the 
dress rather than the wearer. All ornament, too, 
should be made to subserve the same purpose ; for 
whenever the eye wanders from the article of dress to 
the ornament attached to it, that ornament is out of 
place, and defeats the very end of all ornament. The 
dress is to heighten the effect of the figure, and the 
ornaments are added to aid the dress in producing that 
result. A lady dressed in calico and other fitting ac- 
cessories is often, in an artistic point of view, better 
dressed than another on whom wealth has showered 
the waving folds of shining silk and a profusion of 
barbaric pearl and gold. We admire and love the one, 
and are disgusted with the other. The one floats be- 
fore our minds as a being of a refined taste and pure' 
thoughts; the other as one of vulgar tastes and im- 
pure thoughts. " The one glides along as a glorious 
vision of beauty and loveliness, diffusing light and 
joy; the other moves as a rough and ill-assorted 
show-box, causing disgust in the mind of the beholder. 
We every day meet with such examples of good and 



TEACHING — MATERIAL LIVING. IOI 

bad taste in dress, and the refined mind can not hesi- 
tate which example it ought to study and imitate. 
Besides, such a wasteful expenditure of wealth is ab- 
solutely horrid, wicked, while so many, sick and des- 
titute, suffer for even the necessaries which that same 
wealth might have procured in rich abundance. The 
wearer could make others happy with it, rather than 
thus, by its improper use, make herself worse and 
more hateful. This vain show calls up in her mind 
vain thoughts, pride, and envy, while, if she had given 
it to bless the poor, she might have learned to love her 
fellow-creatures, and have made them love her. It is 
indeed more blessed to give than to receive. Charity 
calls up in the soul of the giver that richest and most 
blessed of all sympathy — a love for suffering hu- 
manity. 

Children should always be plainly dressed — dressed 
in such a way as not to distinguish them, in their own 
estimation, from the mass of children around them. 
To dress them out like dolls for show is to deepen 
their depravity in their very infancy. It cultivates 
within them feelings of vanity, pride, selfishness, and 
a whole brood of other bad thoughts and passions, 
and crushes out of their very life love and benevolence, 
and every other sweet and gentle emotion. And yet 
how many weak and foolish parents strive, by extrav- 
agance in dress, to ruin the best interests of their off- 
spring — to breed in them a hardness of heart and a 
selfishness as impenetrable as the nether millstone. It 
is enough to make one's heart bleed to witness the 
young immortals thus being trained to be hateful in- 
stead of lovely, selfish instead of generous, wasteful 
instead of benevolent. Parents have here a fearful 



102 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

* 

sin to answer for — the sin of training for misery their 
own children. S\ich parents have no real love for 
them. Their children are to them like their palatial 
residences, their costly furniture, their gilded carriages, 
their superb horses, and their choice dinners — a means 
of elevating self, of making themselves recognized in 
the world by an outward show of mere wealth. But 
this error is not limited to the wealthy. Most parents 
strive to dress their children beyond the calls of their 
position. They wish their children to be somehow 
distinguished from others, and thus their vanity and 
pride are cultivated instead of their love and humility. 
By such a course of treatment the child is made bad, 
led on from bad to worse, instead of being nurtured 
with noble feelings and thoughts — unlike God instead 
of like Him. Let parents lay this vital matter to heart, 
and impress it upon their memory, if they would train 
up their children in the way they should go when they 
arrive at years of maturity. 

The next subject to which I propose to invite atten- 
tion — that of providing shelter for the body — will re- 
quire but a few words. The same law of duty applies 
to this matter as to those already discussed. The 
wants and comforts of the body are, in the first place, 
to be regarded — not, however, those of a single indi- 
vidual, but of several, for the residence looks to the 
comfort and happiness of the family above all other 
ends. The dwelling, therefore, should be so con- 
structed as best to meet the convenience and comfort 
of that collection of individuals called a family. When- 
ever this end is sacrificed to mere show, there has 
been a failure in the highest conception of architec- 
tural adaptations, and an unpleasant impression will 



TEACHING — MATERIAL LIVING. IO3 

be made upon the minds of those who survey the 
structure. Mere ornament is not beauty. The laws 
of adaptation and harmony must guide the application 
of it, if it is to aid the structure in making the right 
impression upon the mind — that impression which calls 
up in the human soul the emotion of beauty. Build- 
ings may often be seen which appear to the beholder 
as though they were about to be crushed under the 
weight of the ornamental w r ork heaped upon them. 
Such architectural creations always produce a painful 
impression on the mind, calling up the feeling of fear 
rather than the emotion of beauty. Besides, it is a 
sinful extravagance thus to waste the results of human 
labor for the mere purpose of making a show, an ex- 
hibition of boundless wealth. Vanity and pride are 
the architects of such structures — not charity and hu- 
mility. Still, beauty is not to be overlooked in our 
architecture, but it is to be sought rather in following 
the laws of adaptation than in seeking mere architec- 
tural show and ornament. This law holds true of all 
our domestic and public architecture. The style which 
would suit a public building will be wholly inappro- 
priate for a private residence. The interior conven- 
ience of many a building is sacrificed to its mere 
outside appearance. Comforts and conveniences are 
wanting in many a dwelling, because the owner thought 
more of making an exhibition of himself and his wealth 
than of the happiness of his family. Economy in do- 
ing the work for the family should also be regarded in 
the plan of a dwelling, since we are in duty bound to 
save the outlay of all the labor we can. 

But it is unnecessary to carry these suggestions 
further. Enough has been said to show that the idea 



104 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

of duty runs through all the relations of life, and binds 
us down under its sacred bonds in all our plans and 
actions ; and it is this thought which should be im- 
pressed upon every youthful mind and heart. Every 
young man and woman should enter upon life with 
the living conviction that it is no holiday affair ; that 
all its works are matters of the most serious import, 
which should be looked at in the light of eternity, and 
performed under a deep and ever-present conscious- 
ness of duty. When we shall all provide for our daily 
necessities under such convictions, the world and so- 
ciety will put on a higher beauty and embody a deeper 
significance. 



TEACHING — INDUSTRY. IO5 



CHAPTER XI. 



TEACHING — INDUSTRY. 



The next subject which I shall discuss is that of in- 
dustry. Every man has his appointed work of body 
or mind. Idleness is no part of the divine economy. 
14 Work out thy salvation with fear and trembling" is 
a broader and more sweeping command than it is 
generally supposed to be. The salvation of the soul 
depends upon the health of the body, and that upon 
our industry. The prosecution of the last is a condi- 
tion to the successful accomplishment of the other. 
Industry, then, is of divine appointment, and hence a 
duty to be executed by all, while idleness is a sin to 
be avoided by all. 

The work of all work is man's moral, religious, 
spiritual culture ; but the cultivation of the mind is 
essential to the success of this higher work. The 
mind must be developed and strengthened by educa- 
tion, or man can not attain to a clear apprehension of 
God and his own duties, whether to God, his fellow- 
men, or himself. Education is therefore a duty, and 
this view of it must be impressed upon the youthful 
mind, that the stimulus of duty may be added to the 
pleasures of knowledge, to urge the young on in the 
serious work of mental cultivation*. The prosecution 
of science is a duty, since by it we are enabled the 
better to understand the powers and capabilities of 
matter, and compel them to subserve the purposes of 



I06 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

life. We thus bring about useful results with a less 
outlay of labor and time. Nor is the cultivation of 
literature without its utility, provided its aim is to de- 
velop in the reader those powers and thoughts which 
enlarge his views of God and the divine economy, and 
contribute to develop in himself those emotions of love, 
reverence, and piety, which is the highest and ulti- 
mate end of all human culture. The child, then, 
should be taught that in scientific and literary pursuits 
it may labor in the fulfillment of duty as truly as the 
minister in his pulpit or the farmer in his fields. 

Girls and boys should therefore be taught that every 
human being is bound to have some pursuit, some in- 
dustry, some calling, in the prosecution of which they 
will be engaged in the discharge of duty. They should 
be taught that labor, that industry is honorable, praise- 
worthy, and idleness not only disgraceful but wicked. 
A human being without any employment, without any 
calling, living upon the products of the labor of others, 
is a curse to himself and society ; nor does it matter 
whether he is rich or poor, since, if he does not add 
to the common stock of products by his own labor, he 
lives upon the labor of others ; without what others pro- 
duce by their labor, he would go naked and starve. 
When and where has God said that the rich may be 
idle? Some industry is absolutely necessary to a 
healthy and vigorous development of our physical pow- 
ers. Children raised in idleness rapidly degenerate 
in their physical constitution, and almost invariably 
fall into vice, if not into crime. The rich should there- 
fore take the more pains in educating and training their 
children for some industry of body or mind, which will 
at least protect them from idleness and vice, if it does 



TEACHING — INDUSTRY. IO7 

not overflow in fruitful benefits upon their fellow-crea- 
tures. Intelligence in the application of labor is as 
much needed as the mere power of muscle. Industry 
requires intelligent leaders as well as multitudes of 
brawny afms, and the rich have the means of educat- 
ing their sons and daughters to become the leaders 
of industry and the benefactors of the world. 

Girls should be educated and trained to industry as 
much as boys. Who has granted woman any dispen- 
sation to be idle and frivolous? The duties which God 
has assigned to her, require as high a mental and moral 
culture as that of the farmer, or merchant, or doctor, 
or lawyer, or statesman. To her care are committed 
the education and training of the young ; and what em- 
ployment, to w r hich men devote themselves, requires a 
higher intelligence and a purer and more loving heart 
tharr this? There, too, are the needy and destitute, 
the poor, to be looked after and cared for ; and who 
can better execute this blessed mission than a highly 
educated and pure-minded woman? God has laid out 
work enough to employ the time and talents of rich and 
poor, of male and female, and to whom He has given 
much, will He require the more. 

Men and women are diverse, not inferior. She is 
to be the companion of man, and companionship is im- 
possible unless the woman is educated up to the level 
of the man. Unless such is the fact, the wife can not 
sympathize with the husband in the dearest and most 
cherished objects of life. Girls must learn to think, 
to reason, to compare, to have aims of life as much as 
men do ; they must be equal with them in the general 
field of thought, if companionship is to be possible. 
They must be brought to regard life as a serious reality. 



IOS CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

. « 

in the current of which there is work for them to do as 
well as for their fathers and brothers and husbands. 

There is a general education and training, and a spe- 
cial one. The first is such that all girls and boys, 
women and men, should acquire ; the other is such as is 
adapted to prepare one for a particular calling or pro- 
fession. When a particular industr}^ is fixed upon, the 
child should be educated to understand its character, 
and all that which is necessary to enable him or her to 
be successful in it. Every industry and branch of em- 
ployment require this special preparation, and in no 
case should it be neglected. 

The child should be taught the spirit with which it 
should engage in the business of life. The first les- 
son to be taught the young man is to be honest. 
Honesty is the most indispensable qualification for a 
business man, if he is to carry it on as a divine em- 
ployment, as a God-appointed duty. Honesty is 
founded upon justice ; it is the giving to every human 
being what is in the eye, not of human law, but of 
the divine law, his right — that which rightly belongs 
to him. One may fulfill all his legal obligations, and 
yet fall far short of being an honest man according to 
the severe logic of reason and in the sight of God. 
An incident may illustrate this more clearly. . A 
farmer calls upon his landlord, an English nobleman, 
for compensation for injuries sustained by a growing 
crop from horsemen and sportsmen having passed 
over it. The landlord promptly paid what was de- 
manded, fifty pounds. After harvest, when the farmer 
had gathered in his crop, he found that in fact it had 
not been injured as he supposed ; he thereupon called 
upon*his landlord, and stated to him that he had been 



TEACHING — INDUSTRY. IO9 

mistaken as to the fact of an injury to his crop, and 
he therefore brought him back the money he had re- 
ceived ; the landlord, a real man, and an honest and 
generous one, added another like sum to the first, 
and set it aside as an outfit for the eldest son of his 
honest tenant. Here met at once two noble and true- 
hearted men, coming from the two extremes of social 
life, and each fully appreciated the moral worth of 
the other.- The law gave the money to the former, but 
he had claimed it under a mistake as to the truth of cer- 
tain facts ; he supposed he had suffered a loss when he 
had not. If he had then known the truth he would not 
have claimed the money, and he did not'believe it right 
to keep that which, if he had known the truth, he would 
not have required. The act of the landlord was an act 
of noble generosity, to exhibit the high value which 
he placed upon such integrity— such honesty. 

Honesty requires the strictest truth and fidelity in 
the making and execution of contracts. Parties who 
deal with each other, should be upon equal terms as 
to the subject of the contract ; they should both have 
the same means of knowing the quality, condition, 
and value of the thing to be bought or sold. No man 
has a moral right to obtain from his neighbor an arti- 
cle for less than he knows that it is worth. And yet 
the current rule of trade is the reverse ; buy as cheap 
as you can and sell for the most you can, is the maxim 
of a selfish world. On this construction of the law of 
God, one man claims the right to buy his neighbor's 
property for less than its value, if he catches him in 
distress, in a tight place, when he is compelled to sell 
at any price almost, or to do worse. Sharpness, cun- 
ning, overreaching, seems to be the true law of mod- 



110 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

ern trade and commerce, but God can never bless 
wealth thus obtained. 

There is another idea, which lies at the bottom of 
all production and trade : the business engaged in 
should be a legitimate one. In all production and 
trade there are three elements — the producer, the con- 
sumer, and the merchant, trader, or go-between. It 
is the business of the latter to aid, to facilitate the pas- 
sage of produce from the hands of the producer to 
those of the consumer. Legitimate trade, then, con- 
sists in carrying on this intercourse between producer 
and consumer, and those engaged in it are entitled to 
a reasonable compensation for their time and capital 
employed. The speculator is not a legitimate trader : 
his object is to gamble, to bet on the rise and fall of 
produce ; he buys, not to move, but to wait a rise, so 
that he can sell again at a profit. His business, his 
object is to live by his wits, his cunning, his sharp- 
ness, to get something for nothing, to live without la- 
bor and upon the labor of others. It is a business no 
more legitimate and honest than the preparing and 
drawing of lotteries and the selling of tickets. Nothing 
is produced ; property merely changes hands on an 
uncertain contingency — in the one case, the drawing 
of the numbers ; in the other, the rise and fall of the 
market. Most of our city stock sales are of this 
character ; stocks are not bought because they are 
wanted as an investment, but for the purpose of see- 
ing whether they will rise or fall within a given time ; 
if they rise meantime, the buyer requires the vendor 
to pay him the rise over the contract price ; and if 
they fall, he pays the difference. This is not a legiti- 
mate business, it is not the proper employment of cap- 



TEACHING — INDUSTRY. Ill 

ital, it adds no value to the products of the world, nor 
does it facilitate their transmission from the producer 
to the consumer ; it is a mere shift or device to live 
without work, to live upon the labor of others without 
even making any compensation for it. No honest, 
right-minded man can conscientiously be engaged in 
such business, nor would any one, if he rightly appre- 
ciated his duty to God and his fellow-men. The di- 
vine injunction is, that man shall eat his bread in the 
sweat of his face ; that every human being shall and 
must earn — produce by some form of useful labor — the 
things necessary for his own material wants ; that he 
has no right to live upon the sweat of another, even if by 
his greater shrewdness, foresight, and craft he can do 
it. Where such is the case, others are compelled to 
do more than their proper proportion of the physical 
labor necessary for the support of the world : some one 
must sweat for bread that he does not eat, and another 
must eat bread for which he has not sweat. This is 
in direct conflict with the true law of right and the di- 
vine injunctions. 

I can not now carry this discussion further. The 
subject is one of deep significance, and capable of 
being carried through all the ramifications of active 
life. There is some terrible errors current in the marts 
of trade and at the broker's board, which can never 
stand the test of an enlightened reason, and much less 
the final adjudication of the Great Judge, when He 
shall take His seat upon His throne of final justice. 
Sharpness and cunning are oftener commended in the 
business man than that scrupulous honesty which for- 
bids one to take advantage of another's ignorance or 
necessities. The rate of interest with some men is 



112 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

the necessities of the borrower, not the real value of 
the money. Such a business is the discipline of con- 
demnation — a discipline under which the man is ever 
sinking as a moral and spiritual being, instead of ris- 
ing in that scale, as every human ought to be doing 
while life continues. 



TEACHING — SOCIETY. 1 13 



CHAPTER XII. 

TEACHING — SOCIETY. 

Man is born into society. He can not escape its 
duties and its burdens, if he would. It is therefore 
necessary that the child should be educated and 
trained for society as much as for any other of the 
duties of life. Intercourse with our fellow-creatures 
is a source of some of our present joys, if we know 
how r to use it aright ; while, by misusing it, it becomes 
the cause of constant irritation and much unhappiness. 
It may also be made the efficient instrument of intel- 
lectual and moral progress, if we properly improve it. 

Another consideration is not to be overlooked. The 
child who has been solely confined to the family, how- 
ever perfect its training may there have been, has pow- 
ers which will remain dormant and undeveloped ; it will 
have powers it knows not of. In order to the perfect 
development and culture of a human soul, the child 
must be subjected to the action and influence of all the 
media for which it has been created. The action of 
society is therefore necessary to bring into activity 
some of our capacities and powers. The child, sub- 
jected alone to the influence of the family, is liable to 
want that independent and self-reliant decision which 
is so necessary to success in life. The influence of 
society is indispensable to the development of these 
habits of thought and action in a human soul. Con- 
8 



114 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

tact and conflict with others tend to the formation of 
these essential habits, to that self-reliance, to that con- 
fidence in our own judgments, to that decision of char- 
acter, without which the man will ever remain a child, 
ever continue to hesitate when it should act, to specu- 
late when it ought to decide. Without the influence 
and action of society upon us, we should all of us re- 
main incomplete and imperfect, with powers lying dor- 
mant and capacities undeveloped. It is as important, 
therefore, to prepare the child for society as for any of 
the other relations and duties of life. 

The first great qualification for social intercourse is 
a profound respect and a deep sympathy for human- 
ity, whatever its culture or condition may be. 

"If there be one whose heart the holy forms 
Of young imagination have kept pure, 
Stranger! henceforth be warned, and know that pride 
However disguised in its own majesty, 
Is littleness ; that he who feels contempt 
For any living thing hath faculties 
Which he has never used ; that thought with him 
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye 
Is ever on himself doth look on one, 
The least of nature's works, one who might move 
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds 
Unlawful ever. O ! be wiser, thou ! 
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love. 
True dignity abides with him alone 
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, 
Can still suspect and still revere himself, 
In lowliness of heart." 

The selfish and dishonest man is incapable of feeling 
this respect and sympathy ; since a true self-respect, a 
true confidence in our own goodness, is the foundation 
and condition of respect and sympathy for others. If 
we are heartless and insincere ourselves, we must re- 



TEACHING — SOCIETY. 115 

gard every other human creature as being so. We can 
not, in our judgment of others, rise above our estimate 
of ourselves ; without the experience of them in our- 
selves, we are incapable of comprehending the exist- 
ence of them in others. But the man whose moral 
nature is thoroughly cultivated, whose moral, whose 
spiritual powers are in full activity, will be led to as- 
sume, the existence of the same noble thoughts and 
sympathies in others. Humanity to him is a holy and 
sacred thing ; a temple within which dwells the spirit 
of God — a mirror, which, even in its ruin, reflects the 
divine image. Thus endowed, man walks through 
society like an angel of light, carrying the torch of 
everlasting truth into the darkest of human habitations, 
and relief and joy to the lowest and most degraded of 
his fellow-creatures. Thou must thyself be unselfish 
and pure and holy, if thou wouldst make others so. It 
is love and sympathy that draw men and women to- 
gether, and tighten the cords of social unity, while 
hate or despite tends to repel and separate, and thus 
render society an impossibility. 

Children must therefore be taught this respect for 
others by learning first to respect themselves. They 
must sympathize with all — with the rich and poor, the 
educated and ignorant, the pure and the impure, the 
good and the bad. A debased humanity shows yet 
somewhat of its divine origin. They should be taught 
that there is a priceless value in humanity, boundless 
sources of all that is noble, lovely, good, and holy ; 
that virtue and moral worth are the highest objects of 
value in this world, whether found clothed in rao;s or 
reposing in a palace, and that vice and ignorance are 
not a subject for despite, but for pity and deep sympa- 



Il6 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

thy, for tears rather than frowns. That is a miserable 
and wicked philosophy which teaches us to distrust 
our fellow-men, to suspect every man of dishonesty 
s.nd every woman of want of virtue. There can be no 
real society among those with such opinions. Confi- 
dence in humanity is the condition of happy social 
intercourse ; without it social enjoyment is an impossi- 
bility. 

The first law of social intercourse is never intention- 
ally to sfcak a word or do an act calculated to offend 
or wound the feelings or self-respect of another. 
This is the ground of all true politeness. We violate this 
law by speaking disparagingly of others in their ab- 
sence, since those who hear it maybe induced to repeat 
it to them. Let one never say behind one's back what 
he would not say to his or her face ; besides, children 
who listen to such talk, lose all confidence in our good 
feelings, in human integrity, in the sincerity of their 
parents. If a child sees his parents treating a visitor 
with courtesy while present, and as soon as his or her 
back is turned, speaking disparagingly of them, it can 
not derive any very exalted lesson from such an ex- 
ample, nor will it have a very high opinion of parental 
honesty and sincerity. Children are sincere and honest 
until corrupted by bad example and false teaching. 

This law requires us to avoid injuring the feelings 
of others even unintentionally. The manners and 
ways of some are so abrupt and discourteous in their 
address to others, that one has a right to infer that they 
are intentionally offensive. Many social difficulties 
grow out of this disregard of the proprieties and cour- 
tesies of social intercourse. ""We should therefore so 
speak and act as to show our kindly feelings and re- 



TEACHING — SOCIETY. 1 1 7 

spect, and we will, if kindly feelings warm our own 
hearts. 

There is another law as important as this : We should 
never suspect or assume that another intends us any 
unkindness or disrespect. On the contrary, we should 
assume the reverse to be true. A neglect of this rule 
is the source of many heart-burnings and much unhap- 
piness. Some minds are ever on the watch for acts of 
discourtesy, and turn into such the most harmless and 
innocent words and looks and conduct. Never allow 
yourself to indulge the opinion that another intends to 
offend or injure your feelings, until he says it right 
out, and then he has been guilty of an act of a base- 
ness which renders him incapable of disturbing your 
self-respect or peace of mind. Confidence in our own 
integrity and moral worth # will turn aside as harmless 
the shafts of envy and malice. A careful observance 
of these two laws would prevent most of the misunder- 
standings and disputes, and avoid most of the unpleas- 
ant feelings which so often mar the joys of social in- 
tercourse, and lead to life-long alienations between 
those who otherwise would have been sweet and lasting 
friends. 

The next law of social intercourse is never to repeat 
what yon have heard to the injury of another. So- 
ciety is not yet perfect. Men and women will be 
found who delight in slander — in tearing to pieces the 
characters of their acquaintances and friends. This 
often arises from the poverty of thought, from q. want 
of knowledge ; because they have no other subjects 
'upon which they can converse. The daily affairs and 
acts of their neighborhood, or town, or acquaintances 
are well known to them ; and they may know little 



Il8 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

else beside. If they are therefore to converse, they 
must speak of such matters as are in their minds ; 
hence many an unkind word is spoken in idle, thought- 
less talk, which, if repeated, will disturb the harmony 
of a whole social circle and wound the peace of many 
a heart. There is often somewhat of malice mixed up 
in such conversation ; and often we are vain in show- 
ing our own virtues, as we fancy, by condemning the 
faults of others. If we must talk of our acquaintances, 
let us never speak aught else than good of them. But 
if others will not observe this golden rule, let us at 
least learn to forget the unkind words as soon as 
spoken ; never let them find a lodging-place in our 
memories, nor an utterance upon our tongues. Were 
this law inflexibly observed by all, or most, many dif- 
ficulties and disputes, and many unkind feelings, would 
be avoided. And yet how often do we see people 
eager — nay, impatient — until they have repeated a 
slander or an unkind word ; repeated it to the very 
person who of all others should never have known it — 
to the injured party. These retailers of slander are 
the wormwood and the gall, mixed up in society, and 
embittering its purest joys and its sweetest inter- 
course. 

Another rule to be observed is, never to encourage 
the retailer of slander. Listen, but never approve; 
never add a word, unless it is to counteract the slander 
itself. While good manners require you not to hurt 
the feelings of the thoughtless talkers, yet it is a duty 
on our part to make them understand that we take no 
interest in such matters, but rather the reverse. Let 
this once be understood, and you will be seldom trou- 
bled with this class of social pests. One who never 



TEACHING — SOCIETY. II9 

repeats a rumor or slander very soon ceases to re- 
member them. 

Another law of social intercourse is, never to allow 
yourself to become angry. An angry man is sure to 
commit some blunder, to do or say something which 

ought not to have been said or done. Until men and 

<_ > 

women are better than they now are, we are always 
liable to meet with discourteous conduct from others ; 
with unkind words and charges which reach our 
moral and social standing, but which can never touch 
our self-respect or peace of mind, if we ourselves are 
what we ought to be. It is only those who live in 
glass houses that are prompt to get angry when stones 
are thrown. The consciousness of being right is a 
sure protection against all the shafts of malice. Such 
persons dwell in iron, not in glass houses. He who 
keeps himself cool and self-possessed always has the 
advantage over the angry man. It is like heaping 
coals of fire upon his head. It is the severest punish- 
ment one can inflict upon the angry and the unjust. 
Listen to him, hear w r hat he has to say, and then 
calmly show him that he is laboring under a mistake, 
that you have never sought to injure or wrong him. 
If he grows calm and listens, 3^ou have made a fast 
friend ; if he refuses to listen, you have not embittered 
him into a settled enemy. The time of reflection will 
come, when he must see his own fault and your recti- 
tude. 

If you hear a slander circulated ufon yourself, 
never take the trouble to follow it out; you had better 
put your hand into a hornets' nest. If your character 
is not such as to give the lie to it, you will only make 
the matter the worse ; you will be sure to make an en- 



120 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

emy of all who have unjustly originated or circulated 
it. We do not like to be caught in a lie, much less to 
be exposed in the propagation of one. Such people 
invariably add hate to injustice. If you, however, 
take no notice of it, the person who did you the wrong 
will by and by come to his right mind, and, thinking 
you know not what he has said, will become a fast 
friend, instead of being a fixed enemy. The man 
who has injured another can never be happy in his 
presence, since that presence ever calls up in his mind 
the memory of his sin, and he must feel unhappy; 
but, under the consciousness of it, if he thinks his 
offense is unknown by its victim, he may himself suc- 
ceed in forgetting it, and be able to meet the injured 
one upon easy and familiar terms. 

We should never be angry when told of our faults. 
This is an important law of social intercourse. We 
are all imperfect, incomplete, not what we ought to 
be. We often do things we ought not to have done, 
and omit things we ought to have done ; and hence 
we should never feel offended with one who points out 
these deficiencies. If it is done out of love, we should 
be grateful, and hook the teller to our souls with hooks 
of steel; if done through malice, w r e should yet be 
grateful that even our enemies may become efficient 
helps in the perfection of our spiritual life. Let us 
listen- to all such suggestions with kindness and atten- 
tion, and then subject ourselves to a severe self- 
examination, in order that we may discover these defi- 
ciencies, if they exist, and correct them. This is one 
of the great benefits of social intercourse — our faults 
stand out to the view of others, if not to our own. We 



TEACHING — SOCIETY. 121 

are all keen to discover the faults of others, and 
mostly stone-blind to our own. 

These are some of the social laws which should be 
impressed upon the mind of every child, to the ob- 
servance of which all ought to be trained. I do not 
say that there may not be occasions when it might be 
a duty to vindicate one's self against a slander, or to 
communicate to the victim the slander we had heard 
circulating in the public mind to his injury ; but these 
occasions, like justifiable causes of war, seldom occur, 
and hence may be passed over as of small value in 
the practical wisdom of life ; while, if these laws are 
strictly observed, society would be immensely bene- 
fited, and the happiness of individuals be largely im- 
proved and heightened. 

These laws are to be applied in our intercourse with 
all, without regard to rank, position, education, or 
moral worth. Our own moral culture requires it, 
even if those with whom the duties of life bring us in 
contact have no right to claim it. Our influence, even 
with the bad, will be increased for good by the ob- 
servance of these laws of courtesy and kind regards. 
Sympathy is the great power that stirs the depths of 
the human heart, and brings out whatever of good 
is there yet latent. 

While this is true, it is not possible that we should 
or can make intimate associates of all. Society, for 
such purposes, must divide up into clusters, according 
to the several positions, education, and moral worth 
of its members. To render social intercourse intimate 
and agreeable, the members must bring to it an affinity 
of habits, taste, and culture, both intellectual and 
moral ; they must all be interested in the same mat- 



122 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

ters, acquainted with the same subjects, and pleased 
with like modes of thought. Conversation can not be 
interesting and instructive, save upon this condition. 
The intelligent and the ignorant, the refined and the 
vulgar, the virtuous and the vicious, can never mingle 
together in a harmonious and congenial union ; they 
will repel instead of attracting each other. When, 
however, a good work is to be done, all the pure 
minded, all Christian men and women, can cordially 
co-operate in doing it. There is here a subject, an 
object in which the moral and religious can all sym- 
thize and gladly join together in accomplishing. In- 
deed, where the moral and religious powers are 
fully and harmoniously developed and cultivated, the 
intellect must also be so, to a considerable extent; 
and it will be found that such people have higher 
points of contact and sympathy, which throw 7 into the 
shade most other inequalities, and bring them together 
in a cordial and happy union. Goodness, moral 
worth, religious culture, is the strongest cement of 
every pleasant and happy social circle. Such people 
have one thing in common, and that the highest and 
noblest in life, in the light of which all lesser objects 
and matters and things fade away and disappear. 

Children should also be taught that no intimate and 
permanent friendship can be established between the 
good and the bad, the virtuous and the vicious, the 
moral and the immoral, the spiritually minded and the 
carnally minded, between those who have a high de- 
velopment and culture of the spirit, and those whose 
animal nature has been cultivated while their spiritual 
powers lie dormant. This is a fundamental law of 
human life and happiness. What pleases the one class 



TEACHING — SOCIETY. 1 23 

is, and must be, offensive to the other; and hence 
there can be no sympathy between them. The most 
intimate and dearest of all human unions is subject to 
this law more than any other relation of life. The 
relation of husband and wife can only be perfected in 
the union of the good and the pure ; they must be 
pleased with the same thoughts and pursuits, or there 
can be no permanent sympathy and love between 
them. To unite the pure-minded woman to a vulgar 
and debased man is like uniting a living person to a 
dead and decaying body. And yet how often do we 
see violations of this vital law of human happiness ! 
How often do we see the giddy girl allying her des- 
tiny and staking her happiness upon a union with vul- 
garity and vice! The pure minded, even if intel- 
lectually unequal, may be happy together; but the 
good and the bad, when united, throw away all chance 
of happiness in such an unholy union. This vital 
truth ought to be burned into the memory and heart 
of every young person, if their lives are not to be 
failures and their portion misery. The pure minded 
can not love the impure minded. If such attachments 
spring up, they arise from a misunderstanding of each 
other's characters, from ignorance on the part of the 
pure minded. To be pure minded is the best protec- 
tion against being deceived by the impure. The pure 
in heart discover in the lightest words conclusive evi- 
dence of impurity in mind. The two classes can not 
associate together without being conscious of the 
wide gulf that lies between their thoughts and lives. 
The blandest and most honeyed words will betray the 
rottenness, and impurity, and selfishness which nestle 
within. There will grow up between them a sort of 



124 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

instinctive antipathy, which will drive them asunder 
as wide as the poles. 

Parents must give watchful heed to this all-important 
subject, if they would not see their sons and their 
daughters make shipwreck of their future. While this 
dearest and sweetest of all relations should only be 
founded upon mutual love, parents should be careful 
to exclude the bad from intercourse with their chil- 
dren ; or, if it can not be prevented, the bad in char- 
acter should be noted, so that their children may avoid 
them as pollution. It may be too late when the ser- 
pent, in the guise of an angel of light, has worked his 
way into the affections of a son or a daughter, since 
the affections, once roused, clothe the loved object with 
a dearness not its own. There are many mistakes on 
this subject, made by parents. They wait until the 
evil has come upon them, when it is probably too late 
to remedy it. ■ Forewarned is to be forearmed, and 
parents should ever remember it, if they would not see 
their fondest expectations disappointed and embittered, 
and all their future clouded with gloom, which gathers 
around the dying pillow' of a loved one whose wasted 
life points to no hopeful expectations beyond. 



TEACHING — THE MODE. 1 25 



CHAPTER XIII 



TEACHING THE MODE. 



At the risk of some repetition, I must call the atten- 
tion of parents to the mode in which this teaching and 
training is to be conducted in order that they may have 
their full influence upon the life. Spiritual culture is 
to be aimed at more than mere instruction ; the ele- 
ments of the spiritual life are to be reached and 
brought out ; the conscience is to be quickened into 
life, and the emotional nature developed, while the 
animal life, the appetites and passions, are to be re- 
strained and subdued. Unless this result is obtained, 
the highest, the most vital end of all teaching and 
training is most woefully missed — has most signally 
failed. 

Religious truth, taught as a science, is addressed to 
the intellect, and becomes the subject for thought and 
discussion. But this mode of teaching is wholly inap- 
plicable to the young. Their intellects are not suffi- 
ciently matured to comprehend it; hence the whole 
thing becomes tedious and disagreeable. In order to 
interest the child, it must be able to catch the thought 
intended to be conveyed. It must think the thought its 
teacher does, or the teaching is above his comprehen- 
sion and in vain. 

In most of the natural sciences we begin our in- 
structions with the concrete, not with the abstract — 
with the individual, not with generalization. In num- 



126 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

bers, the child begins with things. He sees how these 
are increased or diminished in number. From things 
he passes to figures in their simplest, most elementary 
forms. Master of these, he creeps on from point to 
point, until, with La Place, he can measure and weigh 
the material universe. In chemistry, the teacher be- 
gins with his elements, the simplest bodies with which 
sensation makes us acquainted, and thence proceeds 
in his analysis until he has resolved the whole of mat- 
ter into its elements, calculated its proportions and 
combinations. In the concrete, in the sensible fact, 
he learns to comprehend the principle or law which 
underlies and gives significance to the fact itself. The 
reverse of this mode is too often followed in spiritual 
teaching, in the revelation of the divine facts and laws 
to a human spirit. The highest, the most abstract and 
comprehensive generalizations are first taught, while 
those simple facts and truths which apply directly to 
the infant life are overlooked, omitted. Hence the in- 
tellect is filled wtth theology, while the spiritual pow- 
ers remain dormant and the spiritual life undeveloped. 
It is from the consciousness of this error pervading the 
public mind that catechisms have to a great extent 
ceased to be taught to children as formerly. These 
epitomes of Christian, of religious science, are utterly 
beyond the grasp of the infant mind, besides being 
addressed to the intellect, and not to the development 
of the spiritual powers and life. But, with the disuse 
of this teaching, too many parents have neglected to 
substitute a better mode. This imperfect teaching 
was better than none. It did impress upon the mind 
of the child the greatest of all facts — the existence of 
God. The impressing of this fact upon the infant 



TEACHING — THE MODE. 127 

mind, if the child did not understand a word besides, 
was of incalculable value to its future, since this fact 
lies at the foundation of the spiritual life — is essential 
to any and all religious culture. 

In this religious training and culture, we must also 
begin with the first principles, not with the perfected 
science ; with the simplest applications, not with final 
results. The work is to be made practical, carried 
home to the mind and heart of the child, so that its 
spiritual powers as well as its intellectual may be ex- 
cited into action. 

The distinction of acts into right and wrong is to be 
impressed upon the mind by constantly calling the at- 
tention of the child to its acts ; disapprobation must be 
shown to the doing of the one, and approbation to the 
doing of the other. It is from the look and manner 
of the parent that the child is to be made conscious of 
this distinction. Punishment, bodily suffering, may 
be here brought to the aid of other means. If the child 
suffers for doing certain acts, it will come to feel that 
it ought not to do them, and thus will be conscious of 
those emotions called by Dr. Brown emotions of moral 
disapprobation ; its conscience will be developed and 
brought into exercise. No wrong act should be over- 
looked ; the child should be made to feel that it is bad, 
deserves censure, punishment, its parents' censure, 
whenever it does amiss. It is only by the constant and 
ever-watchful attention and discipline that the right im- 
pression can be made, and the moral powers stimulated 
into activity. 

The same method should be followed in impressing 
upon the mind the thought, the idea of God. The 
child should be led to see His manifestations every- 



128 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

where ; to hear His voice at all times — in the rushing 
winds, the flowing waters, the gentle breezes, as well 
as in the mighty tempest, the flashing lightning, and 
the deafening thunder. The idea of God should by 
the law of association come up in the memory of the 
child, whenever it sees any one or all of these varied 
phenomena. They should be to its mind as the lan- 
guage of God, speaking to its mind and commanding 
its attention. 

The mother, on her knees before God in the pres- 
ence of her child, must contribute powerfully to deepen 
the impression of God upon the infant mind. Here is 
a visible fact, a solemn act of worship by one it loves ; 
it will feel the mighty power of such an exhibition, of 
such an act of recognition of God. Every intelligent 
mother will have a thousand ways of deepening this 
all-important impression upon the mind and heart of 
her loved ones. Let her never omit one of them. 

A respectful observance of the Sabbath will also 
contribute to this end. The child learns that there is 
a difference in the days ; that some of them are sacred 
and holy — are God's days. When the Sabbath is 
strictly kept, the very manner of doing it tells the 
child of God and His holiness, and of worship due to 
Him. All the movements of the day remind it of God, 
and only of God. Whereas, if the day is treated, as it is 
in some countries, as a holiday, the child forgets God 
in the pleasures which are addressed to the ear and the 
eye ; the day reminds it of earth and time, and not of 
God and eternity. While symbols should not be car- 
ried to idolatry ; while one is not to lose sight of the 
thought suggested in the symbol itself, still this mode 
of teaching has great power over the infant mind in 



TEACHING — THE MODE. 129 

waking up and calling into exercise the emotional part 
of our nature — one great object of all religious culture. 
The church should, in the child's mind, be unlike other 
buildings ; it should be to it as God's house, about 
which cluster associations and thoughts and emotions 
which no other building has power to do. Time and 
again and constantly, daily and hourly, must the child 
be reminded. of these things, of these thoughts, of these 
associations. It may be done by a hint, a word, or a 
look ; but these hints and words and looks should be 
repeated whenever an opportunity presents. The 
child's mind will thus become interested in these 
thoughts, and deep impressions be made upon it. 

The same course must be pursued in relation to its 
duties toward itself and its fellows. Its mind should 
be taught to reason on its actions ; no wrong act should 
be overlooked without showing the child its nature, its 
demerit, its desert of blame. The child should be 
made by a hint to see the law and the act, the right and 
the sin. Children are constantly doing wrong, and as 
constantly should be taught the wrong. It is not enough 
to punish ; the child must be made to see the wrong 
and the right; the act should be referred to this, and 
condemned for that and that only. Many parents over- 
look these so-called trifling errors, but let them recol- 
lect that it is by such trifling acts that the moral char- 
acter of the child is formed. These are the examples 
presented by the child itself, by which the parent may 
illustrate and render apprehensible to the infant mind 
the true law of the divine life. Never should a wrong 
act be passed by unnoticed, unrebuked, lest the child 
should come to regard it as right. There are painful 

9 



13O CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

omissions in this respect. Parents are often too busy- 
to notice these minor errors in a child, and therefore 
pass over them in silence, and the child comes to be- 
lieve that its witty sins, its sharp tricks, are no sins, 
are not blameworthy acts at all. 

Selfishness should be rooted out by examples. The 
child should be introduced to the miseries of life, and 
then taught how it has been blessed by being born un- 
der circumstances so much happier than those of so 
many others who are as good as itself and may be bet- 
ter. God's goodness to it should be impressed upon 
its mind, as well as pity for the poor child who is born 
to want and ignorance and vice and misery, unless 
good people by their bounty shall rescue it from the 
consequences of its birth. Such contrasts should not 
be made the means of puffing up its pride, but of de- 
veloping its gratitude, its humility, its compassion. 
Never permit a child to make sport of human misery ; 
let it rather be taught to look upon it with a pity which 
prompts to relieve. And 3-et how often do we see 
children laughing at the unfortunate, at the child who 
has not been blessed of God as they have been, at its 
ragged clothes, its timidity, or its awkward manners. 
The allowance of such conduct on the part of a child 
serves awfully to harden the heart and petrify the feel- 
ings. It narrows the sympathies and teaches a selfish 
morality. 

But above all, let parents teach by a correct exam- 
ple. Parental example is the most impressive of all 
teachers; if this is not right, precept will have but 
little influence over the youthful mind. It is folly for 
parents to talk of liberality and benevolence, while, 
by their practices and words, they are exhibiting them- 



TEACHING — THE MODE. I3I 

selves as stingy, and mean, and penurious, refusing 
to relieve the distressed, or supply the wants of the 
starving. How often, too, do we see parents guilty of in- 
sincerity, and envy, and a spirit of scandal? Parents 
will often, in the presence of children, treat courteously 
a visitor, and as soon as he or she is gone, fall to 
and ridicule or slander him or her ? What can children 
think of such conduct ? They must think their parents 
dishonest, envious, and malicious, destitute of those 
kindly feelings which ought to characterize the inter- 
course of human beings. With such examples before 
them, children will grow up and become filled with 
the like spirit, while they will lose all respect for their 
parents and all confidence in human sincerity and 
honesty. Parents, if they must slander their neigh- 
bors, should avoid doing it in the presence of their 
children. But parents should never be guilty of such 
conduct, should never be guilty of a word, or an act, 
which is not justified by the highest principles and 
prompted by the purest and noblest feelings ; they 
should act generously, lovingly, kindly, toward every- 
body, if they would wish their children so to act. 
The thoughts, and feelings, and principles of parents 
will overflow and penetrate the minds of their children. 
Such a result can not be avoided. 

Let parents then look well to their own words and 
conduct, if they would train up their children in the 
way they should go. Never let them say a word, or 
do an act, which is not right and desirable that their 
children should do. Their own character, in the 
estimation of their children, depends upon it. If they 
are ever generous, kind, charitable, sincere, honest, 
their children will love and reverence them, will rise up 



132 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

and call them blessed, while following their example 
and exalting their memory. Let parents run over 
their words, their acts, and weigh their influence for 
good or evil on those dear ones committed to their 
nurture and culture, and whose future depends, for' 
weal or woe, upon their fidelity in the discharge of 
parental duty. Teach them, as you value the happi- 
ness of your children, both by precept and example. 
Let your teaching and your example be in accordance 
with the true law of humanity, that law which, if 
obeyed, will bind society together with the sweet 
cords of love, and elevate humanity to that condition, 
and develop it into that life, which shall realize the 
divine ideal — a state of perfect beatitude. 



THE WRONG WAY. 133 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE WRONG WAY. 

After having presented affirmatively, my views upon 
moral and religious culture and training, I might close, 
as having said all of truth I have to say ; but oftentimes 
an affirmative truth is made to stand out more distinctly, 
and to become more impressive, by a clear presenta- 
tion of the opposite error. So it may conduce to 
deepen the impression on the minds of parents and 
readers, if I should briefly sketch the wrong way of 
training a child, the way which leads to ruin and dis- 
grace and death, and which is yet pursued by too 
many, with the most heart-rending results ; and many 
persons pursue this course through a real tenderness 
for their children, a kind of love founded on a blind 
instinct, not upon experience and reason, while others 
are reckless and careless as to what their children 
may do, leaving them to grow up as the trees of the 
forest or the wild weeds by the roadside. It is a mel- 
ancholy sight, thus to witness parents training up their 
children for failure in life, if not for ruin. 

When the child has come into the world, the parent 
should consider it as simply having a right to grow up 
and shape its own destiny. This is the true principle 
on which this scheme of moral training is based ; and 
it is always well to act on principle, and understand- 
ingly, since, if the principle is realized in the results, 
no one will be disappointed, no one will be troubled 



134 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

with any misgivings for a failure to do one's duty ; 
whereas, if the principle is one way and the practice 
another, there is a fearful chance for an unquiet con- 
science and scalding tears. This principle gets rid 
of all these difficulties, as it recognizes for right only 
results ; hence, whatever those results may be, they 
will always be right. This principle also will exert 
another quieting influence : it sets aside as null all 
idea of God, and hence of the duty of training a child 
up into His divine and glorious image. According to 
this principle, there are no duties, only results, and 
these results must be left to work themselves out 
through the unrestrained natural man. Such restraint 
is said to destroy all manhood in the boy, and all in- 
dependence in the girl. To insure these all-important 
qualifications, the child must be left to nature's instruc- 
tion, and then he will be so independent and selfish 
that the boy will become a tyrant and the girl a virago. 
Their own wills will be their sole law, and, without 
music in their souls, they will be ready for any act of 
insubordination and lawlessness. But I have said 
enough on the principle ; I can only urge each parent 
to make up his mind upon it, either to adopt it as right 
or reject it as wrong. Let us have none of that half- 
way policy which consists in not daring to deny the 
right, and yet in perpetually practicing the wrong. I 
can not insure peace of mind on that hypothesis, 
though I may insure the result which an honest adop- 
tion of this principle would secure. I want it under- 
stood that this principle comes from the bottomless pit 
and the father of lies. It is, however, important that 
people should distinctly understand what their work 
is, for some then might shrink from doing it, as they 



THE WRONG WAY. 135 

would hardly purpose to do that which they are so 
keenly engaged in doing. 

We are now prepared to apply this principle to the 
development and culture of a human being. As the 
principle impliedly rejects the spiritual part of human- 
ity, we must have a single regard to the animal, and 
seek to develop that according to its own peculiar law. 
If, therefore, a young child cries, as it probably will, 
the mother or nurse should get out of patience at once, 
and in a pet it would be best to strike the child, as that 
will develop the natural instinct of anger, and lead the 
child to resist all efforts to quiet it. This irritating 
process should be kept up until the child has become 
furiously angry ; then it may be quieted by giving it 
what it wants, if it craves anything, or by a sugar- 
teat, some candy, or a little of Bateman's drops. This 
done, the child, being somewhat exhausted by its 
struggles of anger, will readily fall asleep, and the 
lesson for that time may be considered as over. It 
will not do by firmness to let the child fret himself 
without obtaining the gratification he desired, because 
the child, on a next occasion, might yield more read- 
ily, and, after having been subdued by gentle firmness 
a few times, would acquire such a habit of obeying an 
outward law that it would yield at a single decided 
word of command, and in this way his animal nature 
might be subdued, instead of being developed and 
strengthened. Moreover, the candy or the drops 
would also aid to stimulate the appetite, and render it 
more clamorous for gratification the next time than at 
first, while the drops would tend to stupefy the child, 
so that in time it might come near being stripped of its 
humanity. This system of provoking a child to wrath 



I36 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

should be kept up, and be constantly pursued. Every 
time the child becomes clamorous for anything, it 
should be so resisted in the gratification of its wish as 
to rouse it into a temporary frenzy, and in this way its 
anger will become in a short time almost uncontrolla- 
ble, breaking out in fury upon the most trifling occa- 
sions. The will of the child will refuse to submit to 
an outward law, and in a short time set at defiance 
nurses and parents and teachers, and make of home a 
place somewhat like a china-shop with a maddened 
bull within it. It would not be well just to leave the 
child to have its cry out, since by that course its tem- 
per and self-will would fail to be developed, its passion 
would be left to slumber, and, not attaining much 
strength, the child, as its reason and its intellect be- 
come developed, might then 3'ield to their influence, 
as its animal nature w r ould not have been nurtured into 
vigor. If, therefore, this method is to have its full 
effect, the child should always be just half -governed; 
then it will always be in an angry mood. The child 
should always be at first denied its wants, resisted for 
a time, then the parent should yield and give it all it 
wants. In that way it will soon understand that resist- 
ance can always be overcome by anger, crying, and 
stubbornness. The child will very soon come to have 
a will of its own, and know how to subject every other 
to the vicissitudes of its feelings, caprices, passions, and 
appetites. It will soon learn to take what it wants, 
sauce its mother when she protests and prays the good 
child not to be naughty ; but the emphatic " I will" or 
11 I won't" will silence the poor, weak mother and the 
whole house, who will be compelled to yield or fight 
with the precocious Nimrod. The child, as it begins 



THE WRONG WAY. 137 

to run round the house, will show itself an apt pupil ; 
it will tear all the books and papers it can lay its hands 
on, scratch and disfigure the furniture, turn over the 
chairs, poke the fire and throw it out on the floor or 
carpet, throw the broom or brush in the fire, thrust 
its hand into the sugar-bowl, snatch any nice bit from 
the table when strangers are present and there is 
something a little better than common prepared for a 
friend or the stranger ; it will break the dishes, singe 
the cat, and cut the dog, and do many other things 
which will give an auspicious promise of its aptitude 
to receive and profit by its instruction. In this way 
the child will learn the habit of having its will upon 
all occasions, of acting according to the teachings of 
nature rather than from any law of right received into 
or imposed upon the mind by parental authority ; its 
conscience and its moral powers will remain wholly 
undevoloped as they should do, since, if they were to 
act, it might render the promising boy or girl un- 
happy, insomuch as they might be led to regard as 
wrong some of their proceedings, and it would be a 
pity to disturb the peace of so promising a youth. 

Whenever the child does any act indicative of a lit- 
tle smartness and a good deal of wickedness, laugh 
slyly at its smartness, while you gently rebuke the 
wickedness ; tell it what a promising child it is, and 
that it will by and by make a great man or a talented 
woman. This will effectually prevent the formation of 
any settled notions of right and wrong, except the one 
notion, that whatever so promising a child does, is right 
and can not be otherwise. When it is very trouble- 
some to strangers or guests, reprimand it gently ; but 
be sure you tell the guests what a good child it usually 



I3& CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

is, and you can not understand what has bewitched it 
now. The child will in this way learn to lie after pa- 
rental example, since it has been probably told a hun- 
dred times by that same parent that it is a very bad 
child, indeed the very worst the parent ever saw. 

As the boys grow up and are able to run about, they 
will be anxious to be out in the streets of a town or 
citjr, and their curiosity should by all means be grati- 
fied. In this respect, the boys are privileged above 
the girls. Social conventionalism has declared it im- 
proper for a girl to be allowed to run at large in the 
streets of a town or city, and in this respect they are 
hardly and tyrannically dealt with ; since if it is good 
for the boys, I can not see why it is not for the girls. 
It is time that conventionalism should be done away 
with, and reality be substituted in its place. But there 
is no such social difficulty with the boys, since most 
boys are allowed a generous liberty in this respect. 
The streets of a town or city are a school full of in- 
struction ; boys here soon learn many things which 
they would hardly learn under the domestic roof and 
around the domestic fireside. There are here many 
things to be seen which are novelties to the boy, and 
much excitement to be submitted to, and excitement is 
always interesting to the young. In this school they 
will find apt teachers — older boys who have already 
become proficients in all the useful learning to be 
gathered in the streets of a city or town. The boy 
soon learns to swear ; he can not well avoid contracting 
this genteel habit, since he hears it from the lips of 
men and older boys, to whom he looks up as shining 
examples. He also learns to smoke, and that other 
accomplishment, which generally goes with it, the sip- 



THE WRONG WAY. 1 39 

ping of a little beer, or brandy, or gin to quench the 
thirst which follows either tobacco smoking or chewing. 
If his parents are able, they should be sure to keep 
the promising youth supplied with money. This will 
procure the young pupil in street education many ar- 
dent friends, who will be eager to introduce him to the 
acquaintance of the v various places where pleasure is 
to be found. If his parents can not supply money, 
the boy would do well to attach himself to another boy 
who has it ; or if no other means can be found, let him 
abstract a little from his mother's drawer or father's 
pocket — in that way he will soon be induced to find it 
elsewhere than at home, and from other persons than 
parents. If, however, the boy has money, he will 
find older ones to pilot him through the windings of a 
great city, and introduce him to all those pleasant 
places where young men find recreation and pleasure. 
During these excursions parents must not trouble them- 
selves if their boys begin to stay out till after dark, till 
eight o'clock, till nine, till ten, till eleven, till the noon 
of night ; it is not astonishing, since there are so many 
interesting things to be seen and enjoyed. If the young 
man is to be aided from home, it would be well to keep 
for him a fast horse and a neat buggy. There is much 
pleasure in fast driving, and then what an accomplish- 
ment it is ! He will find female friends to grace his 
ride, with whom perhaps his mother may be unac- 
quainted, and whom his sisters have not met in their 
visiting and calling; still they are gay, ring out the 
merry laugh, and sweeten the pleasures of life to the 
promising and pleasure loving. He will pass from 
place to place ; grade by grade will he ascend from the 
sidewalk to the beer-shop, the oyster-saloon with its 



I4O CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

brandy bottle and those choice liquors which never 
impair the health, to the faro table and gambling-house, 
winding up with the gay palaces where the daughters 
of pleasure smile and laugh and in the end betray. 
This whole process is as natural and easy as the way 
to mill. Many parents are too absorbed in pleasure 
or business to inquire for the whereabouts of their chil- 
dren, but console themselves with the conviction that 
their children will do right, come out right in the end. 
Nay, because the father is rich and the mother gay, it 
does not matter much what the son does, since wealth 
and fashion cover up a multitude of what would other- 
wise appear as ugly sins. 

If now and then the boy stays out late, and father 
and mother are uneasy, let them ask the boy, and he 
will explain it all and remove the uneasiness without 
it being necessary to check him in his course. If he 
now and then comes home intoxicated — at first slightly, 
then more and more — do not let the mother trouble 
herself: it is only the freak of a young man, who will 
now and then overstep the strict line of propriety in 
the overflow of youthful feelings, as so many great 
men, in their youth, have done; by and by the wild 
oats will all be sowed, and the domesticated ones 
spring up spontaneously. It is true that these painful 
scenes wall increase in number, and be oftener re- 
peated, as time rolls round ; but let the fond mother 
think of her wealth and her position in society, and 
drug her memory with vanity into forgetfulness. But 
by and by the real results will be coming forth ; and, if 
one day the boy is laid on a d}'ing bed with that fearful 
frenzy which excessive drinking produces, let the poor 
mother console herself that such is the ordinary con- 



THE WRONG WAY. I4I 

sequences of life, and they must be borne in silence and 
with genteel propriety. But, if some day she hears that 
her son has been guilty of murder in. the orgies of a 
brothel, let her dry her eyes and fold her hands under 
the assurance that the natural fruit of her doing has 
now ripened into maturity, loaded with the bitter clus- 
ters of Sodom. Let her go and hide her gray hairs 
and die in obscurity, since she has no child to comfort 
her declining age ; her wealth shall be her consola- 
tion, since that was her idol. As for the father, he is 
too much immersed in money-making to care w 7 here 
his son is, and too callous to feel a pang, as he sees 
him consigned to a drunkard's grave or receiving the 
reward of his crime. 

In matters of dress, it will be well to make this, in 
quality and form, such as to distinguish the child from 
others. Take great pains to convince the child that 
it looks prettier than others, and is therefore better. 
This will early develop the feeling of vanity, and 
teach the child to consider those not as well clothed 
as itself far beneath it, and only to be despised. Dress, 
by this method, will become a test of merit — well- 
dressed people being good and badly dressed people 
being bad. This impression is easily made where 
parents have wealth. If they are poor, then rich 
dress may be regarded as an evidence of demerit, 
of a hard heart and an oppressive spirit. Bad people 
only dress gaily and never work ; it is the poor only 
that are virtuous, industrious, and good. In this way, 
ill-feelings toward each other may be early instilled 
into the minds of both rich and poor, a permanent 
hostility be created between them : then one will be 



I42 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

able to oppress, and the other to plunder, without any 
compunctions of conscience. 

The girls should be specially attended to by the 
mother. She should early flatter them with gay 
dresses and a showy outside. They need not be 
troubled with education, as that will not aid in this 
work. The mother should tell her daughter of the 
faults of all her neighbors and acquaintances ; should 
ridicule their singularities, and depreciate their char- 
acter. She may show her own duplicity, in speaking 
in one way to the face of a visitor, and in another and 
different way behind her back. The daughter will be 
largely benefited by such dishonesty and insincerity 
on the part of the mother, and readily imbibe all her 
spite, and malice, and insincerity. Physical defects 
may be represented as more to be deplored than moral 
ones, and wealth as the only real standard of merit. 
It is sufficient to hint these various points ; the world's 
practice will suggest the residue, and apt mothers 
will find no difficulty in carrying through this course 
of education their apt and imitative daughters. 

I might carry these hints still more into detail, but 
I have said enough to show how a child may be 
trained up for vice, crime, and perdition, and that in 
that training there need be no mistake ; that the result 
will be as certain in this case as the other. Can any 
one doubt that children thus trained will walk in that 
path, through a short and giddy and dissipated life, to 
a rapid perdition ? There can be no doubt of it. The 
records of our criminal tribunals and of perdition are 
full of evidence on this point ; so that no parent need 
hesitate as to the result, if he or she decides upon this 
mode of training. ''The wages of sin is death." 



THE WRONG WAY. I43 

This declaration will ever be found to be true. Let 
parents then choose between the two methods of train- 
ing ; choose deliberately and in full view of the con- 
sequences which will most certainly ensue. It is well 
for parents to look this matter fairly in the face, and 
make up their minds deliberately, whether they will 
adopt honestly and earnestly the one course, and thus 
train up their children for virtue and heaven, or the 
other, and then train up their children for vice, crime, 
and perdition. Reader, if a parent, which course do 
you select? Are you so eager to make money to leave 
your children that you can not take time to train them 
in such a way that wealth will be to them a blessing 
and not a curse ? Remember that wealth is not heaven, 
arid poverty is not hell. There are worse things than 
poverty, and better possessions than wealth. Choose 
ye your course, and then carry it out in honest earn- 
estness. It is a want of reflection, of thought, that 
leads so many parents to make such terrible mistakes ; 
mistakes which involve more than life and death, and 
take hold on interests greater than those of time — in- 
terests which run through both time and eternity. If 
you love your children, stop amid the whirl of pleas- 
ure or business, and reflect ! Make up your mind 
what your children shall be, since their future life and 
character are absolutely within your power to make 
of them vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, or ves- 
sels of honor, fitted for happiness and usefulness and 
a glorious immortality. Do not act without considera- 
tion ; do not refuse to choose your course, for, be sure, 
a refusal to choose the right way is really the choice 
of the wrong way. There is here no middle course ; 
half-way measures are dangerous, and only decided 



144 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

measures are certain in their results. Adopt either 
the one mode or the other, and the result will be cer- 
tain ; you will not have to drink to the dregs that bit- 
terest of all cups — the cup of disappointment, of dis- 
appointed hopes. 



THE STATE ITS DUTY. I45 



CHAPTER XV 



THE STATE ITS DUTY. 



I have now said all I purpose to say upon the fam- 
ily and its relation to crime ; but there are other 
views, which ought to be addressed to the State, as a 
party having a deep interest in the right training of 
the children born under its jurisdiction. Say what 
we may, there are parents who will fail to perform 
their duty to their children, and there are children 
who have been deprived of parents, and, left in des- 
titution, are thrown out from under the influence of 
the family to the teaching of nature, the streets, and 
bad men. Our towns and cities are full of such chil- 
dren, boys and girls, who gain their principles and 
education in the streets and dens of iniquity, to come 
forth steeped in vice and trained to crime. From this 
class come the greater proportion of our criminals — of 
those who, disregarding law and right, prey upon so- 
ciety and disturb its peace. 

Has the State no interest in the proper education 
and training of these derelicts, these waifs of human- 
ity ? The State is bound to keep the peace, to main- 
tain order, to protect life and property, to punish the 
criminal. She then has an interest in preventing the 
commission of crime, in putting a stop to the education 
of criminals. The administration of the criminal law 
is an enormous tax upon our States — upon every law- 
10 



I46 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

abiding community. Is it not better, is it not cheaper, 
to prevent the education of these criminals than to 
prosecute and punish them? As a matter of econ- 
omy, therefore, it is submitted that the public mind 
ought to be roused up to a full consideration of this 
important subject, and lead it to provide a remedy for 
this growing evil. The increase of crime is a theme 
of constant declamation ; and we here see why this 
increase is a moral necessity, unless the public shall 
interfere to put a stop to it by withdrawing these poor 
abandoned children from the action of influences and 
a medium which must train them for vice and crime. 
The State can gather up these destitute children, and 
provide for them that education and training which 
will make industrious, honest, and virtuous men and 
women of them. 

There is another consideration which, with a civilized 
and christian people, must not be overlooked. These 
children by the action of the laws of society are where 
they are, beyond the purifying influence of a well- 
regulated family, many of them beyond the influence 
of the family at all. Have they no claim upon chris- 
tian sympathy? It is not their fault that they were 
cast as waifs upon the bosom of society ; it was the ar- 
rangement of a divine Providence, for reasons inscru- 
table to human comprehension. Yet God has not 
omitted a provision for them. He has commanded 
those who have, to provide for the wants of those who 
have not, under the fearful penalty of taking away 
from those who have, that which they have. The poor 
are given us to develop our sympathy, to teach us hu- 
mility and charity. 

These children are like other children, created in 



THE STATE — ITS DUTY. I47 

the divine image, capable of becoming virtuous and 
intelligent men and women, a blessing and a benefit to 
society itself. Are they by neglect to be left to an edu- 
cation which will turn them out on the world as vicious 
and criminal, as bad men and bad women? They 
know not the terrible consequences of the life they are 
leading ! But the great mass of society do fully com- 
prehend the terrible consequences of the influences 
with which they are encircled, and society in its united 
action has the power to save these poor outcasts from 
these awful consequences. Will enlightened christian 
men and women neglect this duty, refuse to snatch 
these children from the medium into which they are 
born? Can an enlightened mind and a loving heart 
refuse to listen to their call, as it comes up like the voice 
of a mighty multitude, crying : " Save us from this deg- 
radation and vice and crime, which seems, without }^our 
intervention, our appointed inheritance? O give us 
that education, that teaching, that divine truth, which 
will be to us as to you and your children that bread of 
everlasting life, that w 7 ater which shall be in our spirits 
a fountain of waters gushing up into everlasting life ! 
Have we not immortal souls to be trained for God, as 
well as your children ? And will you stand idly by 
and see us educated in the school of vice and crime, 
and thus doomed to a life of wretchedness and misery, 
instead of happiness and joy?" Is there not here an 
appeal to rouse to action the enlightened and the good ? 
And can you turn a deaf ear to this despairing call, 
and lie down at night with all life's comforts around 
you with an approving conscience? 

It is pretended by some that the State has no right 
to interfere in the education of its people, or with the 



I48 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

rights of parents. But a truer philosophy shows the 
futility and wickedness of these views, which serve as 
excuses for the indolent and penurious. Children must 
be educated and morally trained, if they are to become 
more than mere animals. Nature's teaching is con- 
fined to our animal nature, and has no power to wake 
up in us that spiritual life, without which humanity is 
only brutish. The child, then, is entitled to this teach- 
ing and training. God has commanded us to teach 
His truth to all men, and hence to these poor children 
who are thus found wandering in the dark places of 
earth. If the children have no parents, there can cer- 
tainly be no objection to the State taking charge of 
their education and training. Nor have parents, who 
refuse or neglect to train up their children for virtue 
and usefulness, a right to complain. They refuse to 
execute their duty, whereby their children suffer, and 
has society no power, no right to snatch these children 
from the terrible results of such parental neglect, and 
secure them that training to w r hich every human being 
is under the divine law entitled? Is it possible that 
wicked parents have a right to educate their children 
in vice and crime, and the State has no power, no au- 
thority, is not justified by reason and God in protecting 
itself against this wholesale manufacture of vice and 
crime? I think the State has a right to intervene, is 
bound to intervene, and protect these poor children from 
the terrible results of parental neglect and wickedness, 
and itself from the evils which ensue from such neglect. 
Every heart not callous to human sympathy must yield 
a ready assent to these hints, and be eager to aid in 
carrying them into execution. 

The ways ^nd modes in which this object may be 



THE STATE — ITS DUTY. I49 

accomplished are various and manifold. Nor does it 
come within my plan to discuss any or all of these va- 
rious modes ; where there is a will to do a good work, 
the appropriate way will be found out. There is, how- 
ever, a single suggestion which I may not omit, as it 
comes directly within the line of this study. I have 
here endeavored to show the power of the family over 
the young, and its influence on the prosperity of so- 
ciety. The family is a divine arrangement for the 
nurture and education and training of the young. 
Whatever plan, then, may be adopted, the influence of 
the family should not be lost sight of. Every child, 
if possible, ought to be brought under the influence of 
an intelligent, loving, and right-minded family. These 
children, then, as they maybe gathered up, should be 
scattered through the families of the State. Christian 
fathers and mothers should be willing, as a duty, to 
take and train them as they do their own, and fit them 
to become industrious and virtuous members of society. 
Nothing can be substituted for the influence of the 
family ; nothing else will so gently and certainly draw 
out the emotional nature, those deep affections and 
sympathies which are the bond, binding together every 
well-regulated christian community. To throw these 
children together in public institutions, is to deprive 
them of that agency which exercises the most potent 
influence upon the formation of all right character. 
Children thus secluded will not become perfect, com- 
plete men and women : important powers will remain 
undeveloped within them ; their emotional nature will 
suffer from such treatment ; their intellects may be 
thoroughly educated, but their affections will not be 
developed ; their hearts will remain callous and hard. 



150 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

Economy also pleads in favor of this system. In 
the family, labor and education can be carried on to- 
gether; the child will grow up in that condition, with 
that training and with those habits necessary to its 
success in life. And there can be no difficulty in 
finding places for them. There is everywhere work 
calling for hands to do it. There are fields to be 
cleared and cultivated ; there is mineral wealth in the 
earth to be developed ; there are manufactures to be 
carried on, the products of which are needed. Hu- 
man labor is ever productive, when properly applied, 
and the State is deeply interested in its proper appli- 
cation. 

The State, therefore, should not overlook the family 
and its influence, in providing for the wants of these 
children of the streets and of destitution. That is the 
medium which God has provided for the nurture and 
training of the young, and if we follow His plan, we 
may be sure we are in the right way, and may calcu- 
late upon complete success. Failure only occurs in 
our plans when, in their execution, we depart from the 
divine method, undertake to carry them out in a way 
which does violence to humanity itself, since we run 
counter to the laws laid down by the Creator for its 
development and culture. We must act upon the di- 
vine idea, if we would be successful in our endeavor 
to reform and perfect humanity — if we would make 
society what it ought to be, and what it will be when 
all are educated upon the divine plan, and live accord- 
ing to the divine law, 

This subject commends itself to every thoughtful 
mind and to every generous heart. Public thought 
should be roused to its vital importance, and public 



THE STATE — ITS DUTY. 151 

authorities induced to act in reference to it. There is 
here a great duty to be performed ; a duty resting upon 
all — upon individual as well as public action. The 
thinking must discuss, and legislators act without de- 
lay and with wisdom. Then may we expect to see 
crime diminishing, and social intelligence and moral 
worth advancing, pointing to a not distant future, 
when knowledge shall cover the earth as the waters 
cover the seas, and righteousness flow down our 
streets as a mighty flood, and all ignorance -and 
wrong and vice and crime cease from under the whole 
heavens. 



152 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



CONCLUSION. 



It may be objected by some that I have entirely ig- 
nored in this study the agency of God in the spiritual 
development and culture of a human soul. A dis- 
cussion of the divine agency in human affairs did not 
come within the line of thought which I had marked 
out for this study. My business was with man, with 
humanity, with its responsibilities and duties, with the 
law of its existence and development, and not with 
the mode of the divine economy. Man lies within our 
reach. We may be able to influence his action, and 
stir bim up to a more perfect discharge of duty, while 
over God's action we have no influence. He worketh 
according to the councils of His own wisdom, and His 
work is always righteousness. My object was to as- 
certain how a child might be trained in the way it 
should go, so that in after-life it would not deviate 
from it ; hence I had to deal with the human constitu- 
tion, and with human agency — not with the divine. 
My appeal was to parents, and my effort to wake them 
up to a consciousness of duty, and to urge upon them 
a strict performance of it. 

There are various opinions on this perplexed subject 
of the divine agency, and in a practical work I did not 
wish to run counter to the opinions of any. Some men 
deny this agency altogether ; others insist that nothing 
can be accomplished without it. If I were to express 



CONCLUSION. I53 



an opinion, which yet my line of thought does not call 
for, I might difFer somewhat from both of these ex- 
treme views ; the one of which overlooks the divine, 
and the other human activity. The infant may desire 
and strive to walk, but yet through its weakness be 
unable to do it ; and it may be true that our depravity 
is so deep, and our spiritual weakness so great, that, 
struggle and strive as we may to make our lives con- 
form to the divine idea, we should utterly fail, unless 
God, by His spirit, did co-work with our spirits, and 
infuse into our wills a power, through the aid of 
which we alone can succeed in coming off victorious 
in this battle of life. We constantly fail to come up 
in life even to our own ideal of it, and it is not strange, 
therefore, that we should seek and expect aid from a 
higher power ; otherwise our brightest hope would be 
but flat despair. There has ever been a tendency in 
the human soul to look to divine aid. The idea has 
appeared among all populations and in all religions — 
among pagans as well as Christians. Such a universal 
fact would seem to indicate that it is a universal want in 
humanity, arising from the consciousness of its weak- 
ness. Revelation settles this question beyond dispute. 
It is there represented that both human and divine co- 
operation is necessary'to the recovery and perfection 
of the human soul. 

But whatever opinions we may form on this subject, 
we may all be agreed upon another, that for us the 
most important thing to be known is our duty ; and 
the most important thing to be done by us, is the 
strict and earnest performance of this duty. Our 
children are placed under our nurture and tuition; 
we have a work to do toward them, and the important 



154 CRIME AND THE FAMILY. 

thing for us is to do it. Unless we do our work and 
perform our duty, we can not expect success with or 
without the divine agency. God has nowhere prom- 
ised success to the idle ; it is only to the earnest 
worker that His promises hold out a hope of success — 
in work only is there hope ; the portion of idleness is 
despair. We should, therefore, be more anxious to 
learn what our own duties are, that we may perform 
them with fidelity, than to know when and how God 
will execute His work ; for we may rest assured, that if 
we do our part of the work God will do His — we 
need never fear any omission or mistake on His part. 
Many minds seem to be more anxious to investigate 
the character and agency of God, than to engage in 
the study and performance of their own duties. My 
object has been to rouse men and women to the con- 
sciousness of their own duties, and to urge them to 
an earnest and prompt execution of them. The mode 
of God's agency in human affairs is above our compre- 
hension ; but our own work can easily be known, and 
our plain duty is to do that promptly and earnestly, 
for only then can we expect success. Let us all, 
then, wake up to the importance of doing our known 
work, and never flag or weary in the performance 
of it. 

In conclusion, and in view of this whole discussion, 
I would make a final appeal to parents in favor of this 
their most important work and their most interesting 
duty. Do you, in this matter, live up to what you 
know is your duty? Do you govern, and teach, and 
train your children as you know you ought to govern, 
and teach, and train them? Do you see that they 
ever do what you know the} r ought to do? Nay ; do 



CONCLUSION. 155 



you not allow them daily to do acts which you know 
they ought not to do? Are you not, by your own 
conduct toward your children, cultivating in them 
vanity and pride, rather than love and humility? Are 
you not more anxious for their worldly position and 
success, than for their spiritual culture and perfection? 
Do you teach them, by precept and example, to pity, 
and not to despise, the poor, and ignorant, and 
lowly ? Do you not seek to gratify you own vanity 
in their dress and social relations? Thus, high up- 
lifted by success in life, do you not aspire beyond this 
height to raise your children? Do you not seek to 
urge them upward, into a higher social region than 
you yourself started on life in ? Have you not a 
smile for perverse smartness in your child, rather 
than earnest encouragement for simple goodness? 
Are not your views for the future of your children 
bounded by earth, rather than cast forward within 
that veil beyond which we must all, sooner or later, 
pass? Are you not more anxious for worldly success 
for them, than for that spiritual culture which may 
prepare them for communion with the divine? I 
implore you, as you love your dear ones, honestly to 
answer to yourselves these questions. Read them over, 
weigh their import, and answer to your conscience 
and your God ; answer them and act thereupon, as 
you will wish you had done when all the vanities of 
this earthly life shall stand out to view in the light 
of eternity. How insignificant will then appear all 
earthly success, in comparison with that spiritual 
culture and perfection which prepare for communion 
with the holy and the good, with Christ and God 
in heaven ! O, as you love your dear ones, think 



156 CRIME AND TPIE FAMILY. 

of the dangers which hang around your neglect, and 
of the sure promise which awaits upon the performance 
of duty ! Think, too, that if your child falls away into 
vice and crime, yours is the responsibility; that your 
neglect, your sin, is the cause of its failure in life ; 
for God assures you, that if you train up your 
children in the way they should go, when they are 
old they will not depart from it. Understand, from 
this divine precept, the awful character of your posi- 
tion and responsibility, and also a hopeful encourage- 
ment for the honest and earnest performance of your 
duty. 



